Government’s compensation offer to white farmers meaningless

By Tererai Karimakwenda
16 November 2006

A four-page notice has appeared in the government controlled Herald newspaper offering compensation to white farmers who were evicted illegally. On the surface and to any uninformed observer this appears to be a positive development towards addressing some issues in the country’s commercial farming sector. But farmers’ organisations in Zimbabwe who have all the facts paint a different picture, which shows the Mugabe regime presenting a good face to the international community while behaving quite the opposite on the ground.

Emily Cookes from the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) said this is not the first time that compensation lists have appeared in the government newspapers. The last list was published in May of this year and there were others in previous years. Cookes said the problem is that the government has generally been offering only 10% of the actual value of the properties. Only farmers who are really desperate would take such a small percentage for land on which they spent much more than that on improvements alone. Robert Mugabe told guests last week at the launch of a new 99-year farm lease scheme that 204 white farmers had already been compensated.

It is easy to forget that while government is offering compensation to evicted white farmers, it is also trying to evict those still on their properties. Cookes said there are still people showing up on commercial farms with eviction notices signed by the lands ministry. She said some are genuine and others are fake. She said threats of violence and lawless behaviour also continue in many cases.

The irony of it all is that it is government officials who are taking most of the commercial farms illegally while government makes these offers. There is no cohesive policy on land in Zimbabwe and no rule of law on the ground.

Government’s compensation offer to white farmers meaningless
By Tererai Karimakwenda
16 November 2006

A four-page notice has appeared in the government controlled Herald newspaper offering compensation to white farmers who were evicted illegally. On the surface and to any uninformed observer this appears to be a positive development towards addressing some issues in the country’s commercial farming sector. But farmers’ organisations in Zimbabwe who have all the facts paint a different picture, which shows the Mugabe regime presenting a good face to the international community while behaving quite the opposite on the ground.

Emily Cookes from the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) said this is not the first time that compensation lists have appeared in the government newspapers. The last list was published in May of this year and there were others in previous years. Cookes said the problem is that the government has generally been offering only 10% of the actual value of the properties. Only farmers who are really desperate would take such a small percentage for land on which they spent much more than that on improvements alone. Robert Mugabe told guests last week at the launch of a new 99-year farm lease scheme that 204 white farmers had already been compensated.

It is easy to forget that while government is offering compensation to evicted white farmers, it is also trying to evict those still on their properties. Cookes said there are still people showing up on commercial farms with eviction notices signed by the lands ministry. She said some are genuine and others are fake. She said threats of violence and lawless behaviour also continue in many cases.

The irony of it all is that it is government officials who are taking most of the commercial farms illegally while government makes these offers. There is no cohesive policy on land in Zimbabwe and no rule of law on the ground.