ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the regional perspective and the possible impact of Robert Mugabe's land grab on prospects for land reform elsewhere in southern and east Africa. Robert Mugabe's attempted land grab has been widely criticised at home and abroad. It has generally been perceived as a crude attempt to deflect attention away from growing opposition and mounting, often self-inflicted, economic problems by finding a convenient and easy scapegoat. Ageing presidents, approaching 20 years in office, surrounded only by praise-singers and out of touch with domestic and international realities, have already brought much economic and social damage to Zambia, Malawi and Kenya. A deeply corrupt and widely unpopular regime today stands indicted within and without, even by those who genuinely wish Zimbabwe well and were once firm supporters of its government. When friends of Zimbabwe find themselves nodding in agreement with Ian Smith and the International Monetary Fund, they have entered strange waters.
