Security Strategic Dimensions of the ‘Fast Track’ Land Reform Programme in Zimbabwe: A Socio-Political Discourse

Abstract

The article argues that the Fast Track Land Reform Programme should be viewed from a security and strategic perspective motivated by its historiographical heritage regarded as worthy of preservation. It has always been a sensitive issue so compelling that successive colonial administrations, setter regimes and governments were determined to utilize all their instruments of power to exert authority for its preservation and control. The Fast Track Land Reform Programme, like its predecessors was a clear expression of the close relationship between foreign, domestic and military policy in pursuit of national goals and values. The subtext of the article is the assertion of the principle of self-determination over the right of ownership of land on a people as expressed by the United Nations norms and values. The aim of the article is to interrogate the security and strategic dimension of the Fast Track Land Reform Programme. The article argues that the involvement of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces in the Fast Track Land Reform Programme must be understood and analysed from the long held Clauzewitzian philosophy of the crucial inter-relationship between; foreign, domestic, and military policy (Dimitriu, 2018). Four main areas are discussed: the historical land brutal military conquests through the foreign policy pronouncements at the 1884/5 Berlin conference; the United Nations Resolution on the colonised people and how the Lancaster House torpedoed the principle in 1979; the constitutional provisions and prescriptions on the repossession of land; the historical role of Armed Forces in supporting civilian authorities in the implementation of domestic and foreign policy objectives deemed to be of security and strategic nature by successive colonial and settler regimes in Zimbabwe. The major findings of the study provide the modern classical background theoretic, necessary principles that explain the legitimacy and rationale for the professional military involvement in politics of the day. The study concludes that the issue of land on a State or Nation is an emotive matter, which can easily be a source of conflict, if not addressed from a security and strategic perspective.