International Zimbabwe: White Farmers in The Former "Breadbasket of Africa" Frustrated as Government Fails to Honor Compensation For Mugabe’s Brutal Land Grab.

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This is the official discussion thread about the impending humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe, where the government doesn't know how to govern, the "intellectual properties" have fled the country after being violently forced out of their homes, hyper-inflation is once again spiraled out of control, the new farm owners don't know how to farm, the weather is getting worse, and nation-wide starvation is on the horizon.
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New to the discussion? Read the headlines provided in the Thread Index to quickly catch up with everyone else!!!
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If for some reasons you'd like to discuss about South Africa instead, please head over to this thread about South Africa.
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Thread Index:

Zimbabwe's Exiled White Farmers Urged to Return Home, As Agricultural Industry Struggles
By Africa correspondent Sally Sara | 3 Feb 2018

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The Zimbabwean Government's message to exiled farmers is clear. Come home.

It is offering land leases to commercial farmers in an effort to re-start the nation's agricultural industry.

Basil Nyabadza from Zimbabwe's Agricultural and Rural and Development Authority says Zimbabwean farmers in Australia should return to home soil.

"We have a lot of capital resource dotted around the world, including Australia," Mr Nyabadza said.

The Government is now offering 99-year leases to white farmers, a deal previously reserved for black Zimbabweans.

The resignation of president Robert Mugabe last November and the swearing in of his successor Emmerson Mnangagwa has delivered significant change.

Government officials now admit the campaign of farm invasions that began in 2000 was a mistake.

"Clearly, the formulas deployed then, left a lot of bad feeling. And more importantly, the intellectual property, left our borders," Mr Nyabadza said.

Thousands of white farmers were forced off the land during the invasions.

Several farmers and farm workers were killed, many others were injured.

The Zimbabwean Government promised the program would redistribute farming land to Zimbabweans in need.

But many farms were taken by politicians and members of the ZANU-PF ruling party.

Agricultural production dropped dramatically and the nation once regarded as the bread basket of Africa struggled to feed itself.

The farm invasions have continued over the last 18 years and Mr Mnangagwa was part of the government which allowed the seizures to continue.

Now farmers who lost everything are being asked to take the latest announcement in good faith.

For some former landholders, that is too much to ask. They will never return. Others are prepared to give it a try.

Mr Nyabadza says public/private partnerships are the only way forward to restore trust.

"We are now in a new dispensation. And the challenge is now, we must rebuild our economy. In so doing, we need each other. So, we are reaching out," Mr Nyabadza said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-03/zimbabwes-exiled-farmers-urged-to-return/9392322
 
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Once Evicted White Zimbabwean Farmer Returns to His Land


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One of the white Zimbabwean farmers who was thrown off his land by the government of recently ousted president Robert Mugabe has become the first white farmer to return to his property.

Robert Smart received a military escort Thursday to his Lesbury farm about 200 kilometers east of the capital, Harare. A soldier in a van watched the farmer's return and was there if Smart needed him. Smart did not need his services.
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Smart and his family were greeted warmly with tears and ululations by the black farm workers who had lived and worked on the property for generations and who were also evicted from the property.

During the country's colonial times, whites grabbed large tracts of the country's best farmlands, leaving blacks to live in regions that were mostly not arable.

Mugabe said the farm evictions were meant to address colonial land ownership imbalances that did not favor the black majority, but instead favored whites who make up less than one percent of the population.

Land ownership in Zimbabwe has been fraught with emotional, racial and political issues for years.

White farmers were often evicted violently from their farms with security forces using tear gas and AK-47s under Mugabe's presidency.

The blacks who took over the farms, often Mugabe's cronies, usually did not maintain them, since they had no farming experience. Zimbabwe's economy suffered without its agricultural roots and the country's economy slid into hyperinflation.

Newly installed President Emmerson Mnangagwa has promised to undo some of Mugabe's land reforms in hopes of igniting the country's once-prosperous economy.

The Associated Press reports that earlier this month, Terrence Mukupe, the deputy finance minister, traveled to Zambia to talk with former white Zimbabwean farmers who have settled there about returning to their land.

Smart held back tears while greeting old friends and touring his ransacked house.

His son Darryn told Reuters, "We are overjoyed, over the moon. We thought we would never see this day coming." He said, "Getting back to the farm has given not just us, but the whole community hope that it's a new Zimbabwe, a new country."
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https://www.voanews.com/africa/once-evicted-white-zimbabwean-farmer-returns-his-land
 
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Zimbabwe to start paying white farmers compensation after April
April 8, 2019

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HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe is to start paying compensation this year to thousands of white farmers who lost land under former president Robert Mugabe’s land reform nearly two decades ago, the government said, as it seeks to bring closure to a highly divisive issue.

Two decades ago Mugabe’s government carried out at times violent evictions of 4,500 white farmers and redistributed the land to around 300,000 black families, arguing it was redressing imbalances from the colonial era.

But land reform still divides public opinion as opponents see it as a partisan process that left the country struggling to feed itself.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government sees the paying of compensation to white farmers as key to mend ties with the West, and set aside $17.5 million in this year’s budget to that end. The initial payments will target those in financial distress, while full compensation will be paid later.

“The registration process and list of farmers should be completed by the end of April 2019, after which the interim advance payments will be paid directly to former farm owners,” Zimbabwe’s ministries of finance and agriculture said in a joint statement on Monday.

They said the process to identify and register farmers for compensation was being undertaken the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) and a committee representing the farmers.

A committee comprising government officials and former farm owners is currently valuing improvements made on the farms. That process should end next month and will determine the full amount due to the farmers.

The government, which maintains it will only pay compensation for infrastructure and improvements on farms and not for the land, is talking to international financial institutions on options to raise the full amount to pay farmers.

Colonialists seized some of the best agricultural land and much of it remained in the hands of white farmers after independence in 1980, while many blacks were landless.
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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...armers-compensation-after-april-idUSKCN1RK0UU
 
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Didn't the author of all this fail just die?

Hasn't this thread already been done?

Haven't we figured out that good farming is the only way to have a decent modern existence?
 
Zimbabwe appeals for UK support to compensate white farmers
April 16, 2019

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The Zimbabwean government has appealed to the United Kingdom to help it pay more than $3 billion to compensate white farmers.

These white farmers had their land expropriated, the Sunday Mail reports, citing President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Britain had previously promised financial and technical assistance to Zimbabwe for the redistribution of its land under the Lancaster House Agreement ending Zimbabwe’s war of independence.

In 2000, the government seized mostly white farmer-owned farms and allocated them to black farmers.

At that time the government claimed that the decision was intended to correct colonial injustices.

The Southern African nation has budgeted $16.7 million for interim compensation to white farmers.

https://www.africanews.com/2019/04/16/zimbabwe-appeals-for-uk-support-to-compensate-white-farmers//
 
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Didn't they have an agricultural surplus back in the day? Didn't they provide crops to much of the continent at one point?
 
Evicted farmers in Zimbabwe to receive government compensation
The evictions were carried out under former president Mugabe’s land reform programme
May 6, 2019

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About 1,000 white farmers from Zimbabwe who were forcibly evicted from their properties under former president Robert Mugabe’s chaotic land reform programme should start to receive government compensation this month.

President Emerson Mnangagwa’s Zanu-PF government has set aside about US$17 million (€15.2 million) in its annual budget this year to cover the first instalment of reparations that will be paid to farmers subjected to land invasions under the former dictator’s regime.

Between 2000 and 2015 more than 4,000 white commercial farmers had their farmlands expropriated, without compensation, by mobs of Mugabe loyalists. The land was then redistributed to an estimated 300,000 poor black Zimbabweans, as well as to the country’s politically-connected elites.

In mid-April the government confirmed it was committed to finalising compensation to “all former farm owners who were affected by the land reform programme”, with the process of compiling the list of beneficiaries to be “completed by the end of April 2019”.

Commercial Farmers Union of Zimbabwe director Ben Gilpin said this year’s payments are specifically aimed at elderly farmers who have become impoverished since losing their farms.

Compensate

Mnangagwa’s government has also promised to compensate in full all of the farmers who were subjected to land invasions, but only for the improvements they made to the farmland, and the infrastructure they installed.

In an interview with the state-owned Sunday Mail newspaper in mid-April, Zimbabwe’s president said the government was not under pressure to pay farmers for the land they lost. “Our constitution bids us to pay for improvements on land. We do not pay for land because no one brought land to Zimbabwe. When we feel we do not have resources, no one compels us to do anything,” he said.

Compensating white farmers even for property upgrades and infrastructure has become controversial in Zimbabwe, as many people believe they should not get any money as the land was stolen in the first instance.

While he was in power Mugabe justified his agrarian reform policy by saying it was a way to address land ownership imbalances that were created by British colonialism. Under British rule much of Zimbabwe’s arable land was taken away from indigenous tribes and given to white settlers.

Foreign investment

However, Zimbabwe’s government believes resolving the issue of compensation is key to rebuilding its relationships with western nations, which it needs to do to attract foreign investment and access the loans it needs to rebuild the economy.

With that in mind the government is understood to be in talks with international finance organisations about different options that would assist it to pay the farmers the full amount they are owed. But to complicate the matter, some white farmers are threatening to reject any offers they receive for upgrades, saying they purchased their farms legitimately from local landowners after independence was secured in 1980, and therefore they should be compensated for the land as well.

Gilpin told The Irish Times that about 1,000 elderly farmers in “financial distress” had been earmarked to receive amounts of between US$10,000 and US$12,000 per person this year.

“The government has agreed the money must go to as large a number of farmers as possible because many of them are now very old and have little or nothing to live on,” he explained.

Farmers union

Gilpin added: “Being farmers they have not been able to work properly in Zimbabwe since losing their land. They have become reliant on family and friends to survive and many of these people are now in their 70s and 80s.”

The farmers union facilitated the process of compiling the list of farmers who will get compensation, said Gilpin, and the sums paid out will be credited against the final amounts that each farmer gets once the government’s official land evaluation is completed.

A committee comprising government officials and former farm owners is currently valuing the improvements made to farms prior to the land grabs that resulted in the collapse of agriculture in Zimbabwe, one of the pillars of its economy.

The government has indicated this process should be finalised by the end of May. The final figure that is calculated is expected to be well over a billion dollars.

‘Sweetener’

Gilpin concluded that although some critics of Mnangagwa’s regime see this year’s compensation allocation as a “sweetener” designed to get western lenders and investors to open their purse strings, the CFU is hopeful the development will lead to a final resolution of the compensation matter.

“We cannot say for sure that the government will set aside more money for this process next year, but it has indicted it wants to resolve this matter for good,” he said, before adding, “But to do this the government will need the international community to extend it lines of credit.”
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https://www.irishtimes.com/news/wor...-to-receive-government-compensation-1.3882575
 
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Zimbabwe pays $64m to white farmers who lost land under Mugabe
By Abdur Rahman Alfa Shaban | May 16, 2019

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Compensation payments have been made to white farmers in Zimbabwe who lost their farms in a controversial land reform policy under the erstwhile Robert Mugabe – led government.

Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube is quoted by the state-owned Herald newspaper as saying 93 farmers had so far benefited to the tune of $64 million over the last decade.

The report added that the payments made in 2018 were for “immovable improvements” that the farmers had made on the seized lands.

“In 2018 alone, $12m was paid to 29 farmers. In the 2019 national budget we set aside US$53m for the same purpose,” he is quoted as saying.

According to him efforts were still underway to trigger more disbursements via a verification exercise given that the government had identified more farmers who needed to be duly compensated.

“Compensating the affected farmers is a noble idea and is in keeping with our constitutional dispensation,” he added.

The issue of payments long debated came up in April 2019 when the finance and agriculture ministries said they had budgeted 53 million Zimbabwean dollars ($18 million) in payments to “former farm owners affected by the land reform programme and who are in financial distress.”

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The plan apparently angered a South African firebrand politician, Julius Malema, leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, EFF, who branded President Emmerson Mnangagwa a sellout by agreeing to compensate the farmers.

Malema opined that it was particularly worrying for a financially burdened country as Zimbabwe to find money for other reasons than alleviating poverty.

“It’s a sellout position. The way he is going about it, he is not going to finish his term,” Malema said.

“That country is swimming in a pool of poverty; they can’t afford basic things like primary health, proper education and infrastructure. He gets money and goes to give it to people who are not deserving. He is reversing the gains of the revolution struggle. It’s unsustainable,” he added.

The Zimbabwe government and ruling party, Zanu-PF, have stood by the decision charging Malema to stay off their internal affairs and justifying that the move was to win investor confidence.

The party spokesman Simon Khaya Moyo urged Malema to let Zimbabwe deal with its internal issues whiles deputy information minister Energy Mutodi was quoted as telling local NewsDay portal that Harare is seeking to mend fences with western countries.

“Government is clearing all obstacles that have hampered cordial and co-operative relations with Britain and the whole European Union bloc. The Second Republic is focusing on re-engagement.

“The compensation of the former white farmers is necessary to instill investor confidence. We are implementing a number of reforms that ensure that we create a clear break from the past and lay a firm foundation for investment. That is the (direction) this government has taken,” he stressed.
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https://www.africanews.com/2019/05/...to-white-farmers-who-lost-land-under-mugabe//
 
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Amerikuracana said:
Didn't the author of all this fail just die?
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Yes.

Amerikuracana said:
Hasn't this thread already been done?
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It was lost during the forum's transition to the new software.

Amerikuracana said:
Haven't we figured out that good farming is the only way to have a decent modern existence?
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Everyone except South Africa, who yearns to repeat this tragedy.

LogicalInsanity said:
Didn't they have an agricultural surplus back in the day? Didn't they provide crops to much of the continent at one point?
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Basic background information in regards to the subject matter are provided in the OP.

Cunningham said:
Reparations? Lol nice.
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"Partial compensation", from the people/political party who were directly responsible to the farmers who were personally victimized.

It's a concept that some American posters will struggle to wrap their heads around, no doubt.
 
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Sounds like reparations.

Sherdog dislikes this.
 
Why would you come back? Soon they will forget, take the farms again and the cycle will continue.
 
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Hmm...I wonder if the U.K would give ZANU-PF a loan. There's no way their annual budget is big enough to compensate every claimants on the list.

Anyway, the quicker the Zimbabwean government get on with it, the faster the farmers might return home and their stolen farms will start producing again, and may be their country can try to regain their former title of "The Bread-basket of Africa".

Not sure how many will actually return though. The idea of having to lease your own land that was robbed from you at gunpoint might be too bitter of a pill for the farmers who legitimately bought their land at full price on the open market well after the colonial era and didn't steal it from anyone.

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Zimbabwe's white farmers: Who will pay compensation?
May 16, 2019

_106956817_zim4.png

Dave Wakefield, who lost his farm in 2001, has leased land from a black owner ​


In Zimbabwe, thousands of white farmers were forced from their farms, sometimes violently, between 2000 and 2001 under a government programme of land reform. The seizures were blamed for destroying Zimbabwe's economy, and ruined relations with the West. A new plan to compensate the farmers could restore donor confidence but it has divided the country, as the BBC's Shingai Nyoka reports.

The rolling hills beyond the rich farmland remind Dave Wakefield of what he lost. He points out a distinct bald hilltop among them and laughs, "bald like me".

It is part of the Chaddesley Estate, which used to be his 2,000-hectare property.

He bought it in 1980 after the government of newly independent Zimbabwe relocated him from another piece of land, which his family had farmed for generations. He purchased Chaddesley with compensation money and a bank loan.

_106951131_zim1.png

Some farm equipment was left behind when the white farmers were forced out​


He was forced off the estate in 2001, as part of former President Robert Mugabe's policy to give land to the majority black population.

He argued that this was to redress colonial-era land grabs, when much of the country's best land was reserved for the white population and black farmers were forced onto marginal areas.

Between 2,000 and 3,500 white farmers were evicted from their farms, some with only the clothes on their backs.

For years their claims for compensation had largely been frustrated, but recently things have begun to change.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government has now pledged to make an estimated interim payment of $16m (£12m) to farmers in distress, while they work out the total compensation to be paid.

A mainly white farmers' group, the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), says the figures being mentioned are nowhere near enough - it says its members are owed up to $9bn in compensation.

From the interim payout, Mr Wakefield will receive about $20,000 of the $2m he believes he is owed, nevertheless he welcomes it as better than nothing.

"Six hundred of our members have died, my friend just passed… so he is never going to benefit," he says.

"So yes it's a step in the right direction, it will help pay for medicals and food in the interim.

"We lost pensions and are unemployable. We are living from hand to mouth and so it is interim help and I am grateful."

_106956822_zim8.jpg

Farmer Dave Wakefield has employed local people to work on his farm ​


Mr Wakefield is now 72 and has been forced to rebuild his career from scratch.

He is leasing a small farm from a black owner in central Zimbabwe and is cultivating potatoes and maize. But it is a far cry from the operation he used to run.

The need to pay compensation is written into the constitution adopted in 2013 and it did begin under Mr Mugabe, but only in a piecemeal fashion, according to the CFU.

The authorities are legally required to only pay for infrastructure such as buildings and dams. They will not pay for moveable assets that were left behind, such as tractors and irrigation pipes.

The government says that it will not compensate the farmers for the value of the land that they lost, which has always been one of the main bones of contention.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48264941
 
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Cubo de Sangre said:
Can a victim get money and not have to come back to farm?
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Why should these white farmers need any money? Just come back forgive, forget and leave the past behind in much the same way blacks are expected in SA, Zimbabwe and pretty much everywhere else?
 
Lord Coke said:
why would you come back? Soon they will forget and take what the farms again the cycle will continue.
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Eh. It's a complicated and emotional issue. It's hard to not see why there was hatred against the farmers. The colonists claimed the best land for themselves and forced the Natives to live on shitty land.

Mugabe also put fucking morons in charge of the land and as a new official said they lost hella intellectual property.

Interesting how this has all played out for sure. I definitely need to read more on the issue. How was treatment of native workers by the colonists?
 
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