|
Back to Index
Zimbabwe:
Mugabe plans fresh farm seizures
ZimOnline
September
07, 2005
http://www.zimonline.co.za/headdetail.asp?ID=10543
HARARE --
President Robert Mugabe’s government will launch fresh farm
seizures to ensure every "native black Zimbabwean" owned
a piece of land by the start of the next rainy season around November.
State Security
Minister Didymus Mutasa, who doubles as land reform chief, on Tuesday
said the government would move to take remaining land from white
farmers for its controversial fast-track resettlement programme,
which analysts say has largely benefited Mugabe’s cronies.
Mugabe denies
the charge, and his government says the reforms have created more
than 500 000 black farmers, up from the 4 500 white commercial farmers
who used to own 70 percent of the most fertile land in Zimbabwe.
The Harare government
has also publicly said it had completed land seizures and was now
working on improving output on the former white-owned farms.
But Mutasa told
ZimOnline: "We are going to take the land from whites and we
are not mincing our words about that ....we will not rest until
every black person, every native Zimbabwean has a piece of land."
Mutasa’s comments
came in the aftermath of the passage in Parliament of a constitutional
amendment Bill last week, which seeks to bar white farmers from
challenging the seizure of their land in court.
He also told
state media after the amendments were passed that the government
would issue new title deeds to black farmers resettled under the
much criticised reforms.
According to
the amendments, farmers have up to 30 days to surrender title deeds
once their land is gazetted for resettlement.
Most white farmers
have clung to their title deeds even after being forcibly removed
from their farms.
Mutasa yesterday
said the unavailability of land to many Zimbabweans was partly responsible
for worsening poverty in the southern African country. "We
are poor not because we do not have the skills, but because we do
not have the land which is what we fought for," the Security
Minister said.
Government critics
blame the land seizure drive, which was led by bands of war veterans
from the ruling ZANU PF party, for destabilising commercial agriculture
and plunging once food exporting Zimbabwe into severe food shortages
since 2001. But Mugabe says repeated drought is responsible for
his country’s long-running food crisis.
Yesterday, farmers’
organisations said their members had not yet accessed inputs and
loans for the 2005/06 farming season, once again threatening production
in the key sector. - ZimOnline
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.
TOP
|
