RICHARD GREENE,
Sir, - Day after day we hear increasing numbers of appeals on our radios, televisions and newspapers for aid for southern Africa as hunger and disease again strike this unfortunate continent.
At the same time the gates are now being closed forcibly on 3,000 commercial farmers in Zimbabwe. This is a culmination of Robert Mugabe's campaign against them for the past two years whereby they have been obstructed from growing anything on their lands.
These farmers represent about the best agricultural resource that Zimbabwe could have. The farmers are there, the land and capital are there and the investment in water and expertise is there - yet this is all to be lost.
There have been droughts in Zimbabwe before but these have been overcome without significant suffering. The disaster that will increasingly affect Zimbabwe lies at the feet of the government. It is the self-inflicted squandering of an agricultural structure that was well capable of producing enough food for Zimbabwe and for export to its neighbours.
This is not an argument against any agricultural reform. However, there must be a realisation that economic development for any emerging economy needs to include everything that contributes positively to that economy.
When Ireland had an unemployment rate approaching 20 per cent could we have afforded to close down all the multinational companies? Of course not. They have contributed greatly to the economic development of this country. In Zimbabwe the commercial farmers could have contributed so much to a secure future for that country.
So what can be done? I think it is dishonest for this disaster in Zimbabwe to be presented through our media as being about crop failure and drought. Everyone must be told that it is actually about an obscenity of waste, intimidation and corruption.
Then, if countries such as Ireland, which have traditionally contributed so much in humanitarian disasters, demand change in Zimbabwe, perhaps there might be some long-term solution to the cycle of calamity of Africa. - Yours, etc.,
RICHARD GREENE,
Castledermot,
Co Kildare.