They justified this programme to the rest of the world by arguing that
they were redressing historical injustices and racial imbalances in the
ownership of the land. The reform programme ignored the legal situation
prevailing in respect to farm ownership and it also ignored the issue
of fair and
reasonable compensation for assets taken over by the State.
The legal position was quite straight forward – commercial farmers held
full freehold title and in over 80 per cent of cases, also held a
‘certificate of no interest’ issued by the Zimbabwe government allowing
them to buy the farms on the open market after 1980. Such a requirement
was mandatory – in order to enable the State to acquire the farms if
they so wished, on a willing seller, willing buyer basis. Some 3,8
million hectares of farmland was in fact acquired in this way since
1980.
Farmers holding both the title and the certificates held an
unassailable legal right to the land and all improvements. By so doing
they held the right to receive in full, the market value of such assets
when they were sold, less any bond obligations to banks.
In the following 8 years, thousands of farms were ‘acquired’ with the
regime changing the law every time a farmer or group of farmers secured
legal judgements in their favour. Eventually a group of farmers took
their case to the SADC Legal Tribunal in Windhoek, Namibia where they
initially obtained a decision saying that they had the right to go to
the Tribunal on the issue
(the State had apposed the action) and subsequently secured a ruling in
favour of the farmers – instructing the Government of Zimbabwe to
protect the farmers legal rights.
One small group of affected farmers also enjoyed the protection of a
‘Bilateral Investment Protection Agreement’ signed between the
Government of Zimbabwe and the farmers home Government. A group of
farmers of Dutch origin who had invested after Independence and were
protected by the BIPA took their case to the international Courts in
the Hague. Last week the highest legal tribunal in the world ruled in
favour of the Dutch investors and granted them nearly 22 million
dollars in compensation, payable in 90 days.
The attitude of the regime towards the farm acquisitions was quite
straight forward. They were ‘taking the farms’ from their owners. They
simply went to a nominated agency or individual and obtained an ‘offer
letter’ which then allowed the ‘beneficiary’ the right to take
occupation. No protection was afforded to the owner or his staff and no
interference was permitted, as the
operation was considered ‘political’. In the majority of cases force
was used – mainly in the form of groups of young, politically motivated
thugs who acted on behalf of the ‘beneficiary’. Once the owners and
their senior staff had been evicted, the new farmers took occupation
and took advantage of the assets and even standing crops and livestock
on the farms.
Many elderly and outstanding farmers were evicted in this way – leaving
some of them so traumatised that they never recovered. One such farmer,
Keith Harvey, was evicted from his cattle ranch in the midlands and
subsequently went into a cationic coma for two years before he
eventually died. He was a former chairman of the Natural Resources
Board and a life long conservationist. A fine cattleman and a person of
great integrity and commitment to the country of his birth.
But no estimate has yet been made of just what the disruption of
commercial farms has cost us and I asked economists in the farming
industry to let me have the numbers. Even I was shocked by the
statistics. In 2000 the total output of the agricultural industry in
Zimbabwe was 4,3 million tonnes of
agricultural products worth at today’s prices US$3,347 billion. This
has declined to just over 1,348 million tonnes of products in 2009
worth US$1 billion – a decline of 69 per cent in volume and a decline
of 70 per cent in value.
What is often not appreciated is that smallholder farmers have been
just as badly affected by the collapse of the industry as the large
scale commercial farmers. Their production in the past season is
estimated to have decline by 73 per cent over that achieved in the year
2000. This is on top of the forced displacement and loss of employment
for 250 000 people and their 1,3 million dependents on commercial farms.
Despite these stunning figures the farm invasions have continued with
480 incidents on remaining farms recorded since the GPA was signed in
September last year. Even those farms that were granted legal
protection by the SADC Tribunal have been specifically targeted on a
punitive basis by the elements that are carrying on with this illegal
activity and in fact are openly defying the SADC decisions. The
international decision is enforceable and creates very significant
challenges for the new Transitional Government. Estimates put the total
value of potential legal claims at US$5 billion
dollars, some 30 per cent more than current GDP.
It is quite clear that the reform programme pursued by the Zanu PF led
regime since 1998 has been a costly failure. This is demonstrated when
it is appreciated that over 90 per cent of all production from
commercial farms in the past season has emanated from the remaining
large scale farmers who are now being disrupted. There are reports that
over half of all the farms taken over are in fact now derelict and
abandoned. Many of the individuals now ‘taking’ farms are doing so for
the third or fourth time. The fact that sugar production in the
lowveld, on highly developed irrigation estates, has declined by 35 per
cent – almost all of the decline outside of the control of the core
Estates of Triangle and Hippo is due to illegal land occupations.
It is time to accept that the past policies on land have been a failure
and that it is time to rethink and to put policies in place that will
give all farmers security and enable then to finance their operations
properly. Such policies cannot be implemented until the issue of the
rights of farm owners is resolved and the issue of compensation
addressed. The combined costs of the folly of the land invasions are
staggering – they include US$2,8 billion in international food aid on
an mergency basis, nearly US$12 billion in lost agricultural production
over 10 years and now a potential bill for US$5 billion in compensation
– a total of US$20 billion dollars.
And now we are asking for billions of dollars to fix this self-inflicted damage – its bizarre.
Eddie Cross
Post published in: Economy