When Zimbabwe’s then-President Robert Mugabe initiated a large-scale “redistribution program” in the early 2000s, it resulted in the displacement of around 4,000 white farmers, stripping them of their farms, homes, and land.
Now the country’s government claims that some farmers will soon be compensated – at least partially.
Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party seized white farmers’ farms, citing a desire to address what they described as “wrongs of colonialism”, racism and alleged inequalities in land ownership between the black and white populations, which they believed dated back to before 1980 when Zimbabwe had white minority rule.
In practice, however, the land grab was a huge failure, not only because large farms were carved up and turned into much smaller and less profitable ones – but also because the reform was riddled with corruption and much of the land was given to representatives of the ruling party and its allies.
Almost overnight, the country’s agricultural production halved, and more than two decades later the economy has not recovered.
Since Mugabe’s death in 2019, other leaders in the country have tried, somewhat tentatively and without much success, to lure back formerly displaced farmers in the hope of boosting the battered economy. Recently, the country’s finance minister, Mthuli Ncube, even agreed to provide some compensation to white farmers who had their land stolen.
Murdered and raped
According to AP, Zimbabwe has approved a total of 441 applications for compensation worth $351.6 million from white local farmers, as well as 94 applications from foreign nationals worth $196.6 million.
However, only one percent, or $3.5 million will be paid out in cash to the indigenous white farmers, the remaining sum they will receive in government bonds, it said.
Many of the white farmers who previously owned the best agricultural land were often forcibly evicted by armed mobs, and according to human rights organizations, several were also killed, raped or seriously injured.
According to Ncube, the compensation to local white farmers does not relate to the land – which the government still believes it had a legal right to take. Instead, they are being compensated for infrastructure in the form of buildings, wells and irrigation systems, and payments are expected to be completed before the end of the year.
Dependence on aid
Zimbabwe used to be perhaps the region’s most important food producer but now needs to rely on aid, not least from the West, to feed its population, and long periods of severe drought have further worsened the situation.
Today, all agricultural land belongs to the state, and those who want to farm it can only do so by lease. Earlier in October, however, the government opened the door to allowing the sale of land – but only to black Zimbabweans.
This proposal has also been heavily criticized, as observers say that people close to the ruling Zanu-PF party were often allocated several farms that were supposed to go to poor citizens, and can now make money by reselling them.