|
|
AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
Show panel list
Road to Independence: Rhodesia/Zimbabwe and the Land Question
| Panel |
19. New Perspectives on Liberation in Southern Africa
|
| Paper ID | 92 |
| Author(s) |
Onslow, Sue
|
| Paper |
No paper submitted
|
| Abstract | Of all the colonial legacies in Southern Africa, land redistribution is the most contentious issue - in domestic, regional and international politics of Southern Africa. This paper focuses on the question of land and the Rhodesian/Zimbabwean transition to independence in 1980. Drawing on newly available archival material in South Africa, and extensive elite interviewing in Britain , this paper examines the extent to which the British and South African leadership recognised the vital importance of land, and the necessity for extensive financial resources, and adequate structures to be set in place for the management of redistribution post-independence. The paper will cover the years 1976-1980, and explores the involvement of the South African Department of Foreign Affairs in attempting to establish an International Development Fund, which comprised a key part of the Kissinger Initiative of 1976. This Fund also formed an integral part of the subsequent plans elaborated by Dr David Owen and Cyrus Vance, to resolve the Rhodesian/Zimbabwean conflict. Finally, this paper examines how the issue of land was deliberately managed within the context of the Lancaster House Settlement of 1979, and highlights the role of key, external players in South Africa, in the Commonwealth and the United States.
|
|