How a Bill became a Law in Zimbabwe: on the Problem of Transforming the Colonial State
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Opening ParagraphOn 18 April 1980, a new black government took power in Zimbabwe. It confronted the widest gap in the world between the very poor and the very rich. Some 6000 white farmers owned farms with an average size of 6000 acres, comprising the best half of the arable land in the country. 800,000 African farmers scratched a living out of the sand and rocks that constituted the other half. Seventy-five per cent of the children of wage workers on the white farms suffered from malnutrition: their parents had a minimum monthly wage of $20 (Rhodesian). Eighty-five per cent of those children had never received a medical examination or visited a clinic. The dismal figures roll on and on.