Zimbabwe Begins Paying White Farmers For Seized Land

Zimbabwe’s government began paying compensation to White farmers who saw their land seized under a controversial government program in the early 2000s, the BBC wrote.

This payment is the first installment of a 2020 compensation agreement signed by the state and local White farmers, which will see Zimbabwe pay a total of $3.5 billion in compensation.

The payments will cover 378 farms out of the 740 deemed eligible for compensation. Only one percent of the total $311 million assigned for the first round of payments will be paid to farmers in cash, and the rest will be paid through US-dollar-denominated Treasury bonds.

Now that the payments have started, more farmers have shown an interest in receiving compensation, even if the majority have yet to accept the deal and continue to retain their ownership deeds.

Part of the reluctance of some farmers to accept the deal are the terms: The government has agreed to only compensate former farm owners for “improvements” made on the land – such as buildings or wells – while refusing to pay for the land itself, arguing it was unjustly seized by colonialists. It is prioritizing compensation for foreign investors with farms protected by bilateral investment agreements.

When Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980 and shook off White minority rule, most of the country’s farming land was in the hands of about 4,000 White farmers. Land reform starting in 2000 aimed at restitution, mainly undoing colonial-era landgrabs from Black farmers, according to the Associated Press.

Since then, thousands of White farmers were pushed off their land by government forces and vigilantes, often violently, in an attempt to rectify colonial-era land seizures. However, the program spooked Western investors and strained relations with the West.

As a result of the program, Zimbabwe has been frozen out of the global financial system for over two decades, leaving the southern African country with a tanking economy and a massive foreign debt.

Analysts see the compensation plan positively, saying it could be effective in repairing relationships with the West and averting international court judgments.