That unassailable axiom of morality and law applies to the social and political tragedy playing out in Zimbabwe. From a historical perspective, one can find a high degree of justification for some squatters' occupation of about 1,000 of the country's large white-owned farms and ranches. They have long-standing ancestral claims to the land that was stolen from their forebears by the British colonials.

Unfortunately, the squatters' efforts to occupy those farms cannot be uncoupled, morally or legally, from the violence that has been perpetrated by some of them against the white landowners and their black farm workers.

Twenty years ago this month, Southern Rhodesia ceased to be and a new country called the Republic of Zimbabwe officially took its place on the political map of southern Africa. That transformation brought with it some dramatic change.

Political control shifted to the black majority. Justice was rendered almost color-blind. Educational, employment and business opportunities were expanded for black citizens. But ownership of the land did not change significantly, although land reform was one of the primary objectives of the guerrilla movement that toppled the white supremacist Ian Smith government.

Now, two decades after that transformation, 4,500 white farmers own most of the country's best agricultural land, while the majority of black farmers struggle to scratch out a living from minuscule plots of inferior soil.

It wasn't supposed to go down that way. Part of the deal that ended the country's war of independence was a commitment by Britain and the United States to provide Zimbabwe with $2 billion for land reform. That didn't happen. Not even close.

And although Britain admits that over the years it has sent Zimbabwe only a fraction of that, it accuses the government of President Robert Mugabe of having mismanaged the land reform assistance that it did provide.

Nevertheless, the British are now willing to talk with the Mugabe government about fulfilling its pledge to provide the resources to buy the land from the large landowners instead of confiscating it.

The takeovers, of course, are not technically acts of the Mugabe government. Supposedly they are grassroots actions being taken by veterans of the war for independence. But the government clearly is encouraging them and looking the other way while they happen.

That's immoral and blatantly political. Mugabe, who has been in power since 1980, faces his first real political test. Although he is not running for re-election, Mugabe's party (the Zimbabwe African National Union -- Patriotic Front) faces a stiff challenge from the Movement for Democratic Change in the parliamentary elections next month.

Mugabe obviously is stoking the coals of the long-simmering land redistribution issue to distract the voters from other sources of dissatisfaction with his government. Unemployment in the country has reached 50 percent; inflation has risen to 70 percent. Fuel supplies are perilously low, and AIDS has reached epidemic proportions.

Nevertheless, Mugabe would not have the land redistribution issue to exploit if the Western powers had kept their word and provided Zimbabwe with the promised wherewithal to buy a substantial part of the country's most arable land from the white plantation owners and distribute it to the poor black peasants.

Britain says it stands ready to help on condition that the violence that has taken the lives of two white farmers and two members of the Movement of Democratic Change ends.

Although Britain's re-committing to provide land reform funds is the right thing to do, it could have troublesome repercussions. Other former colonies of Britain and other European powers in Africa and other parts of the world have similar post-independence carryover grievances against their former colonial masters.

Zimbabwe's squatting, therefore, could become contagious. Although Mugabe's land redistribution extortion obviously is wrong, land-poor peasants and political leaders may only care that it appears to have worked.

Johnson is a columnist and editorial writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 400 W. Seventh St., Fort Worth, Texas 76102. Distributed by KRT News Service

© 2000 PioneerPlanet / St. Paul (Minnesota) Pioneer Press