TUESDAY, 3:00PM:
The Zimbabwe government which has been warning white farmers for the past three months that their land is likely to be expropriated, without payment launched a campaign on Tuesday to soften its stand.
In an interview in the government-controlled Herald, Lands Minister Kumbirai Kangai said the government doesn’t want “to get rid of commercial farmers but rather to share the land … available”. He promised white farmers the government would not proceed on arbitrary forced nationalisation of land and that seizing five million hectares of white-owned land would still leave them “with enough land to stay rich”.
Observers believe the new campaign is in support of the Zimbabwe government’s bid for British aid to fund its land reform programme.
It constitutes a turnaround for the government, in style if not in substance. For months, President Robert Mugabe has been theatening white farmers that the government will pay no compensation for seized land; farmers should turn to the British government, because white farmers are its children. He has also served notice that constitutional safeguards against arbitrary expropriation will be abolished if they stand in the way of his land reform programme.
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