Farmers’ offer accepted ahead of crisis talks

The Zimbabwean government accepted a land offer from white farmers on Wednesday aimed at breaking an impasse over President Robert Mugabe’s controversial land reform programme, Reuters reported.

The announcement came as Commonwealth leaders prepared to meet in the Nigerian capital of Abuja on Thursday to try and patch Zimbabwe’s strained relationship with the British government - which Harare says should pay for land for redistribution. It also came ahead of a crucial meeting in Harare on Monday and Tuesday next week between southern African heads of state who have been tasked by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit to find solutions to Zimbabwe’s economic and political crisis. South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki will join leaders from Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, Angola, Malawi and Zimbabwe at the talks.

In May the mainly white Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) had offered to sell about one million hectares of land to resettle about 20,000 black families, according to the report.

After government declined the offer several times, Zimbabwean Vice President Joseph Msika said on Wednesday that most of the 531 farms offered by the CFU were already earmarked for acquisition under the government’s fast-track resettlement programme. But, according to the report, the CFU had offered to drop legal challenges to the acquisitions and to help organise financing for resettled farmers as part of the deal.

“This means precious time will not be wasted in needless legal battles which only serve to polarise our society and cost us dearly through loss of production time,” Msika was quoted as saying. The government has earmarked about 5,000 white-owned farms for acquisition and redistribution to black peasants and has said it wants about 8 million hectares of land. “This (CFU offer) is a complementary programme. We are pursuing our fast-track resettlement programme, but we are happy to establish this new understanding with our farmers,” Msika was quoted as saying. According the report, the farmers said their proposal would allow Zimbabwe to lay out a land reform scheme acceptable to international donors. Mugabe has said his government can only pay compensation for white-owned land if it receives donor funding.

“We know that much still needs to be done, but what we are saying is that we can work within this framework,” CFU spokesman Malcolm Vowles was quoted as saying. Zimbabwe has been in crisis since February last year when self-styled war veterans, encouraged by President Mugabe’s government, invaded hundreds of white-owned farms across the country. The land invasions have crippled agricultural production and worsened Zimbabwe’s economic recession, now in its third year.