Abstract
Zimbabwe’s compulsory acquisition of white owned farms between 2000 and 2003 attracted a lot of international media attention (Campbell 2003: 78). Robert Mugabe, the country’s leader since the attainment of independence in 1980, deflected accusations of racism by insisting that black peasants desperately needed the land for their survival. Furthermore, he maintained that his government’s land reform was consistent with the biblical mandate to identify with the orphans, widows, and the landless. He argued that the land was given to blacks by God, and that the struggle for land had been at the heart of the 1970s war of liberation. A practising Catholic, Mugabe often resorted to theological arguments to justify his radical land acquisition. Addressing regional Catholic Church leaders at Chishawasha Seminary in Harare on 30 July 2001, Mugabe suggested that his programme was consistent with the divine plan. The Church itself had identified with the principles that informed his exercise. Thus:
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