Zimbabwe Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge said on Thursday the government wants Britain to compensate white farmers in the southern African country for land seized under a contentious land reform programme.
”We have completed the land reform programme, and it is now up to the British govermment to assume its responsibility to compensate the commercial farmers,” Mudenge told journalists at an EU-SADC meeting here.
Mudenge said the compensations could be made directly to the farmers, through Britain and Zimbabwe, or even through the United Nations. ”We just want justice for the white farmers,” he said.
Mudenge was speaking on the sidelines of a two-day meeting of government ministers from the 14-member Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) and the European Union (EU) in Maputo, Mozambique.
Zimbabwe is currently embroiled in a land reform programme which has seen the seizure of most of the properties belonging to the country’s 4 500 white farmers.
Very few have been compensated so far by the Zimbabwean government. – Sapa-AFP