<\/p>\n
On a cool May morning with pink clouds in the dawn sky, I looked up at the waning crescent of the moon and thought about this Letter From Zimbabwe [column] that I\u2019ve been writing and sending to people around the world every fortnight for 26 years.<\/p>\n
It started with men at my farm gate throwing bricks and rocks as they began what became an eight-month road to hell, as they seized the farm and everything on it and devastated the lives of everyone who lived and worked there.<\/p>\n
It was not an inherited farm, it had been legally bought and paid for 10 years after independence, with government approval.<\/p>\n
But that made no difference to the men at the gate or the Zimbabwe government. Twenty-six years later, the headlines this week are: \u2018We are not giving land back to white farmers.\u2019<\/p>\n
Read:<\/p>\n
White Zimbabwe farmers turn to Trump in R56.67bn dispute
\nZimbabwe fails to pay white farmers who had land expropriated
\nIt\u2019s time to set up a land claims court for dispossessed farmers in\u00a0Zimbabwe<\/p>\n
Those were the words of the Minister of Agriculture Anxious Masuka, who was apparently clarifying widespread reports of a land reform reversal.<\/p>\n
What followed was as clear as mud.<\/p>\n
Sixty-seven farms that were protected by Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements, including from Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, would be returned to their owners; 840 indigenous farms that were wrongly gazetted at the height of the land reform programme would be returned to their black Zimbabwean owners; and 409 white Zimbabwean farmers, whom the minister said have been \u2018peacefully co-existing with local land reform beneficiaries\u2019 would be allowed to purchase the farms they are now occupying, with a \u201cset-off mechanism\u201d.<\/p>\n
ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n
A \u201cset-off mechanism\u201d is explained like as follows: if the government owes a farmer whose land it seized $500 000 in infrastructure compensation, and the purchase price of the land is now $500 000, the debts are cancelled out to facilitate ownership.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe land itself is being sold, not returned for free,\u201d the minister said.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t tell you how many times I\u2019ve read this bizarre story, which surely requires a comprehensive and clear policy paper for the future of agriculture and food security in Zimbabwe, not to mention property rights, title deeds that are worth the paper they are written on and good race relations.<\/p>\n
So far it\u2019s all as clear as mud and aside from the 409 white farmers, the rest of us, around 4 000 \u201cdispossessed\u201d farmers, continue to wait for our compensation. It\u2019s been 26 years now.<\/p>\n
It begs this question though: if I go back and \u2018occupy\u2019 my own farm and \u2018peacefully co-exist\u2019 with the people who know they are living on contested land, would I be allowed to buy my own farm back again \u2013 the farm I\u2019ve already paid for and whose title deeds I have? Why would I do that?<\/p>\n
All of this is morally incomprehensible whichever way you interpret it.<\/p>\n
I end this letter with an extract from a Letter From Zimbabwe [column] that I wrote in May 2000, called \u201cSacrificial Lambs\u201d. It explained how 67 Marondera farmers were called to an emergency meeting held in the Ruzawi Club.<\/p>\n
ADVERTISEMENT:<\/p>\n
CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n
I was there, and we were told that, in order to prevent 2 000 farms from being seized by the government, we had to decide who was prepared to sell their farms, who had had enough of land invasions and who was ready to give up.<\/p>\n
Read:<\/p>\n
When gifts are not gifts in Zim
\nHelping hands, and hands that just keep taking in Zimbabwe
\nZimbabwe\u2019s untouchables: A signature, a bribe and a blind eye<\/p>\n
I described what happened: \u201cIt was all about who was prepared to be a sacrificial lamb. It\u2019s all a farce really, because although 35% of farmers in one small area of Marondera said they would give up their farms, it had to be done with compensation.<\/p>\n
Compensation, we were told, was not an issue that had been discussed yet because there wasn\u2019t any money. What the government suggested was that farmers would be given an IOU and then, funds permitting, would pay us out over a five- or 10-year period.<\/p>\n
These comments were met with the scorn and disgust that they deserve. What hope would any of us have of ever being paid, and how the hell would we survive in the interim?\u201d<\/p>\n
That was 26 years ago.<\/p>\n
We are still waiting. Nothing has changed. Trust remains elusive.<\/p>\n
#clear #mud #farmers #Zimbabwe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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