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The minister for Lands and Land Resettlement, Didymus Mutasa, told the local press last week that farmers were responding well to the compensation initiative.
“We are compensating the infrastructure only, Blair should compensate them for the land,” he said.
But Justice For Agriculture (JAG), which represents the majority of evicted farmers, said the offers amounted to only some 5% of the true value of the improvements and had been rejected by most farmers.
Mutasa and the Zimbabwe government have insisted it should be the British government that compensates farmers for land according to the Lancaster House agreement signed at independence.
John Worsley Worswick of JAG explained where it all went wrong: “Certainly the farmers who were paid over the 15 year period got paid for land and improvements on that land. But the issues got muddied with regards to statements made by Mugabe that the land was stolen. Now this is very much an issue between the Zimbabwe government and the British government in that it predates 1980. In fact it goes all the way back to 1919 and at some stage there is going to have to be an international ruling with regard to whether the land was stolen then or not?”
Worswick stressed that many farmers bought their properties after 1980, with the blessing of the same government now taking them back.
“82% of the farmers who stayed in the country after independence purchased their land after 1980, the majority of them with certificates of “no present interest” from the government. They developed their farms with the blessing of the government. So to turn around in the year 2000 and say the land was stolen and you’re taking it back raises major issues that need probably at this stage an international ruling.”
As for reports that many farmers were accepting the recent government offers for compensation. Worswick said: “To the best of our knowledge only 200 farmers over the last five years have received any compensation. Now that’s 200 farmers out a possible 4,300 farmers who have been evicted. It’s hardly a major response.” – SW Radio Africa
Post published in: News