WEDNESDAY, 11:00AM:
WHITE farmers gathered at local meetings yesterday to learn from the farming union which farms will be redistributed to black farmers. The farmers say that the list goes further than derelict land or farmers who own more than one property, and includes some of the finest land in the country.
The country’s land act allows the government to send notices to farmers informing them of “compulsory acquisition” after which they may make no further alterations to structures on the land without government approval. The actual buying out of the land may take up to ten years, and the farmers have restricted rights of appeal.
TUESDAY, 1:00PM:
Zimbabwe’s Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) said on Tuesday it has received a list of the farms the government has targetted for the resettlement of landless black farmers a sign that the government has now launched its controversial plan to reposses millions of hectares of land from white farmers.
A CFU spokesman declined to say how many farms are on the list, but President Robert Mugabe has spoken of 1 775 farms totalling five million hectares for takeover before Christmas. Although the government’s statements on the issue have been ambiguous, Mugabe at one point said the government will not pay for the land, only for improvements, such as houses and other structures. He called on the British government to pay compensation, arguing that the British seized the land from blacks more than a century ago, and white farmers are “children of Britain”.
Britain a fortnight ago declined to fund a programme to compensate farmers whose land is seized, stating it is only willing to provide aid for land acquired from willing sellers.
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