- HARARE -- Zimbabwe's increasingly
autocratic government yesterday announced the nationalisation of all land,
including millions of acres seized from white farmers and transferred to
friends of the regime.
-
- John Nkomo, the lands minister, told the official Herald
newspaper all title deeds will be declared void and the state will hand
out 99-year leases for productive farmland.
-
- The government did not intend to "waste time and
money" in disputes with farmers whose land had been seized, regardless
of what legal documents they held, Mr Nkomo was quoted as saying.
-
- "In the end all land shall be state land and there
will be no such thing called private land," he said, encouraging all
landowners to offer their newly acquired properties to be considered for
leases.
-
- Mr Nkomo did not say when the nationalisation programme
would be imposed, but said a national land board would be set up to supervise
the process and ensure the effective use of land.
-
- The decision appeared a backhanded admission that Zimbabwe
is struggling to feed itself and that the situation is worsening. The opposition
has long argued that the government has effectively laid waste to one of
Africa's most efficient agricultural industries.
-
- The seizures began when President Robert Mugabe, facing
defeat in the 2000 parliamentary election, began the violent eviction of
more than 4,000 white farmers and hundreds of thousands of their workers,
destroying commercial agriculture and with it the economy.
-
- Mr Mugabe promised that white-owned farms were to be
given to landless peasants, but many of the most fertile were taken by
the elite of his Zanu-PF party.
-
- Most of the seized land is now fallow as the new "owners"
- including most senior members of the armed forces, the judiciary and
Mr Mugabe's family have neither skills nor resources to farm, and Zimbabwe
has become dependent on food aid and imports to keep the population alive.
-
- Yesterday's decision marks an attempt to wrench land
from new multiple farm "owners" and quell divisions in Zanu-PF
before elections next March.
-
- Critics of the redistribution programme say much of the
best land has been allocated to Mugabe supporters and is under-utilised
or lying fallow. Production on many other farms has dropped sharply as
the new owners lack financial resources, seed, fertiliser, fuel and farm
machinery.
-
- Mr Nkomo said the state-issued leases would be sufficient
collateral for farmers to secure loans to purchase material and equipment.
-
- Gideon Gono, the governor of the reserve bank, paid a
fair price for a farm more than two years ago. He said yesterday: "Wearing
my farmer's hat, then I say the devil will be in the detail. We will have
to wait and see the legal framework."
-
- He said that as "captain of the banking sector",
he was sure the commercial banks would be "well disposed" to
the leases.
-
- Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition Movement
for Democratic Change, said: "Nationalisation is an outmoded word
and it flies in the face of the constitution.
-
- "The government's land policy, if there is any policy,
has run into deep problems and they are looking for a way of rescuing the
situation."
-
- Matumwe Mawere, a black industrialist who bought several
farms but lives in South Africa and is wanted by the police for "externalising
foreign currency", said: "So it is land today and it will be
businesses tomorrow.
-
- "So yesterday we owned land freehold, which we paid
for, and today we are told it will be subject to a lease. We will have
to be compensated."
-
- Josiah Tungimirai, a former air chief marshal now a Zanu-PF
MP, also paid for a farm. He said: "It will be fairly done. They will
convert my title to a lease. If anyone is unfair about it and becomes my
enemy, well I say they will not live for ever."
-
- David Coltart, the MDC legal spokesman, said: "This
is a new phase in their madness. It's going to make them even more unpopular
with black Zimbabweans who have paid good money for land, and are now going
to be deprived of their title.
-
- "This is not Zambia or Mozambique, which had leasehold
as a system. Zimbabweans have had title deeds for over 100 years."
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