JEREMY LOVELL, Johannesburg | Sunday 6.00pm.
PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki has secured money from Norway and Saudi Arabia to help pay for the redistribution of white-owned land in Zimbabwe to blacks.
According to the Sunday Times, the two governments have pledged R100-million ($14.2-million, 15.7-million euros) to enable the Zimbabwean government to buy 118 farms from whites.
The Sunday Independent said Mbeki had convinced Saudi Arabia and Norway to channel the money through the United Nations Development Programme.
According to a report earlier in Business Day, Norway and Saudi Arabia agreed to advance the money until after Zimbabwe’s parliamentary elections — scheduled for June 24 and 25 — when they would be paid back by Britain.
The paper said Mbeki persuaded British Prime Minister Tony Blair to accept the plan while the South African president was visiting London earlier this month.
“They agreed on the understanding that they would be paid back by London once the violence had ended, elections held and the result respected,” the paper said.
The newspaper said the 118 farms were, according to Zimbabwean officials, earmarked for redistribution at an international donor conference in 1998 where Britain pledged 9million ($13.5-million) to compensate their owners.
The former colonial power has promised Zimbabwe some 36-million for land reform, but is holding back the money until President Robert Mugabe brings an end to the violence marking the invasion of more than 1500 farms by his supporters. — AFP