| Ivhu Kuvanhu ● Umhlabathi Ebantwini ● Land to the People |
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The Government of Zimbabwe has indicated that its commitment to compensation is based on external funding. The
Zimbabwean economy does not have the capacity to offer just and equitable compensation while at the same time driving the
economy forward.
However, donor fatigue and unhappiness about the terms of the compensation and the way forward politically or economically
are part of the reasons why previous plans to raise money to buy farms did not materialise.
By 2000, war veterans had effectively become the "military wing" of ZANU-PF in the "war" against white commercial farmers.
Land was one of the war veterans' primary grievances. Ex-combatants, war veterans and civilian war veterans were united in their
displeasure with government land policy. The ruling party was accused of taking prime land and doing little to assist the rural
poor. The government, meanwhile, failed to realise that many of the rural poor and even some of the squatters being evicted
from farms were actually war veterans. Many of the latter would ultimately claim financial compensation, partly because they had
been denied land compensation.
The government’s stance has been that it would pay compensation whose value it determined, and based only on
‘improvements to the land, rather than including the value of the land as well, because of the history of colonial plunder. The
farmers who purchased their land rather than received or inherited it as part of the process of colonial subjugation of the
indigenous Africans were also targeted.
Has the fast track programme dispossessed white farmers of their land in a manner far worse than they originally dispossessed
the indigenous its owners?Two wrongs don't make a right though.
Who crafted title deeds? Why d do natives not have title deeds for their own villages?
Did Africans not have to go to war to get their land back? Why didn't the colonial authorities just give them property rights then?
Are title deeds in the hands of a white farmer worth more than the land claims of the native African?
Zimbabwean economy does not have the capacity to offer just and equitable compensation while at the same time driving the
economy forward.
However, donor fatigue and unhappiness about the terms of the compensation and the way forward politically or economically
are part of the reasons why previous plans to raise money to buy farms did not materialise.
By 2000, war veterans had effectively become the "military wing" of ZANU-PF in the "war" against white commercial farmers.
Land was one of the war veterans' primary grievances. Ex-combatants, war veterans and civilian war veterans were united in their
displeasure with government land policy. The ruling party was accused of taking prime land and doing little to assist the rural
poor. The government, meanwhile, failed to realise that many of the rural poor and even some of the squatters being evicted
from farms were actually war veterans. Many of the latter would ultimately claim financial compensation, partly because they had
been denied land compensation.
The government’s stance has been that it would pay compensation whose value it determined, and based only on
‘improvements to the land, rather than including the value of the land as well, because of the history of colonial plunder. The
farmers who purchased their land rather than received or inherited it as part of the process of colonial subjugation of the
indigenous Africans were also targeted.
Has the fast track programme dispossessed white farmers of their land in a manner far worse than they originally dispossessed
the indigenous its owners?Two wrongs don't make a right though.
Who crafted title deeds? Why d do natives not have title deeds for their own villages?
Did Africans not have to go to war to get their land back? Why didn't the colonial authorities just give them property rights then?
Are title deeds in the hands of a white farmer worth more than the land claims of the native African?
| An Independent Agrarian Reform Watchdog |
| Equitable Redistribution of Land to all Zimbabweans |
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