Land reform beneficiaries under scrutiny

Violations of Zimbabwe's "one man, one farm" policy by some senior figures within the ruling party does not invalidate the entire land reform programme, a land expert told IRIN on Monday. "It is an issue that some people have used their advantaged position to gain more farms," said Sam Moyo, who helped draft the government's original framework for land reform. "A certain opportunism happens within a process of change and a process of redistribution. We should recognise this, but it should not be overblown." Responding to grassroots criticism that the principles of land reform were being flouted, the government last year commissioned a national audit through the office of Vice-President Joseph Msika. The interim report has been completed and reportedly forwarded to President Robert Mugabe. In its latest issue, the UK-based newsletter Africa Confidential said it had obtained a copy of the audit, and alleged that there was "evidence of corrupt allocations and the use of violence by senior politicians and military officers to evict landless small farmers - the very people that President Robert Mugabe claimed the land reform policy would help". Africa Confidential said the worst case reported in the audit involved Air Marshall Perence Shiri who owns three farms. One of them, at 1,460 hectares, was "three times the maximum size allowed". Quoting the audit, the newsletter said Shiri was trying to evict 96 landless families who had been allocated the property under the government's resettlement scheme. "The fact that there are opportunists who have breached the policy is not new at all, it's something that's been discussed in government," Moyo said. "[The issue of opportunism] from a left [-wing] nationalist point of view is an argument we've been raising for a while. Obviously, those against land reform have been raising [these examples] of excesses to dismiss land reform, as if there has been no benefit from the programme," he added. Prior to land reform, as a consequence of the colonial legacy of skewed land holdings, 11 million hectares of Zimbabwe's prime agricultural land was in the hands of 4,500 commercial farmers. The majority of rural Zimbabweans were forced to eke out a living on drought-prone communal lands. Moyo, director of the Southern African Regional Institute for Policy Studies, said that land reform aimed at a complete transformation of the rural economy. Under the fast-track scheme, the A1 model of resettlement was geared to creating a large base of small-scale producers on plots of between 30 to 150 hectares. A "middle-class" group of settlers have been allocated 50 to 250 hectares, he said, with large-scale farmers leasing properties under the A2 model of around 400 hectares in the main arable areas. That compared with the 1,200 hectare spreads that were the average size of a commercial farm before reform. Moyo said the accusations of corruption in land redistribution had to be seen in the context that only a "small number" of people had been named in the audit. "Some of these excessive allocations can be reversed through directives," he suggested. "The bottom line is obviously a demand that one person one farm should be implemented." Africa Confidential said that many of those named in the report told the newsletter that they were "being smeared by political opponents in the [leadership] succession struggle". Fast-track land reform has benefited at least 300,000 families, according to the government. But it has also been criticised for the "disorderly" process of allocations, and the slow take up of land - especially with the A2 model - which has had an impact on food security. "Many rural black Zimbabweans expressed a profound disapproval of the manner in which government is carrying out land reform, in particular the lack of clear criteria for the allocation of land and the lack of structured support for new settlers," a report by Human Rights Watch said last year. It pointed out that "uncertainty has been exacerbated by the rule that land in the communal areas be given up when fast-track land is taken" - resulting in a degree of wariness by potential beneficiaries. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in August 2002: "There can be no lasting solution to the current problems unless the government of Zimbabwe implements a phased and fully funded land-reform programme. It should be one that is run according to the rule of law, that allows for proper training and adequate support to new small farmers and compensation to displaced farm workers and commercial farmers." Moyo said the fast-track process could not "realise its full potential" under the current "economic squeeze" that limited the government's provision of key agricultural inputs, financial credits to the new farmers, and social service infrastructure.