Government spares Oppenheimer farms

The Zimbabwean government had dropped nine farms owned by the South African Oppenheimer mining dynasty from a list of white-owned farms to be seized for land redistribution, the state-controlled ‘Herald’ reported on Thursday. “Some 180 farms, among them six owned by foreign nationals and nine belonging to the Oppenheimer family, have been spared from acquisition,” the report said. The de-listing came in the wake of representations by diplomatic missions lodged with the ministry of foreign affairs to have them spared, it added. A Reuters report said that last month South African newspapers said Nicky Oppenheimer, non-executive deputy chairman of mining giant Anglo American, was under pressure to give up farms for a land reform programme after senior government officials descended on his vast Debshan farm. The government says the Oppenheimers own a total of 960 000 hectares of land - the size of Belgium- in Zimbabwe, according to the report.

Reuters, meanwhile reported that the government said on Friday that had targeted another 1,000 white-owned farms for seizure under its controversial land redistribution programme. The mainly white Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) said the move brought the total number of properties listed under the Land Acquisition Act to nearly 5,000. “We have no idea at the moment what the intention is...(but) it would appear that the government intends to list everything. It looks like a nationalisation of all land owned by the CFU,” a senior union official was quoted saying. The government listed more than 2,000 white-owned farms for seizure in notices published on Friday, but the CFU said only about 1,000 properties were new listings, according to the report.