War veterans in Zimbabwe's land occupations: complexities of a liberation movement in an African post-colonial settler society

Abstract

In 2000, Zimbabwe’s century old land movement took a swift turn, rupturing into nationwide occupation of mainly White owned commercial farms. The speed with which occupations spread, their organisation, the political and economic context, the historical origins and interaction of the forces, shaped an unprecedented and complex land movement impacting on the region, the continent and beyond. Zimbabwe’s land occupations were unique in two ways. First, the leading role of War Veterans of the 1970s anti-colonial guerrilla war in the land occupations was exceptional. Second, the simultaneous challenge to racial, settler economic dominance and neo-colonialism by marginalised peasants, farm workers, war veterans, urban youth and the unemployed, was a new experience in post-colonial history of Africa’s liberation movements. Zimbabwe’s land occupations were a long continuum of land struggles to resolve the colonial legacy of racial resource distribution but as they occurred, the role played by the state, the contested terrain of the civil society, formidable political opposition and imperialist interventions of western powers clouded the identity of the land movement thereby making it difficult to distinguish the moving current and the identity of forces from the wider political conflicts swirling around it. Who exactly initiated the occupations and for what reasons? This thesis attempts to unpack these intricately locked forces in a bid to understand their origins, interests, strategies, tactics and above all, the alliances between and amongst them, for clearer understanding of the core of the movement. This thesis traces the history of Zimbabwe’s liberation movement as foundation to understanding political reconfigurations that shaped post independence social movements and assesses agrarian technology responses to such a dramatic social change of Africa’s post-colonial settler society. The thesis provokes prognostic thoughts about the role played by social capital of liberation struggles in future economic and cultural emancipation from shackles of neo-colonialism and racial, settler capitalism.