Senior leaders endorse land deal

Senior Zimbabwean politicians have endorsed a deal brokered in Nigeria aimed at ending the crisis over land reform, news reports said on Tuesday.

The politburo of the ruling ZANU-PF part met on Monday and endorsed the agreement signed in Abuja, the reports said.

“The Politburo stressed the need for urgency in implementing the agreement if the momentum created by Abuja is to be sustained,” Jonathan Moyo, deputy secretary for information and publicity in ZANU-PF, was quoted by the government-backed ‘Herald’ newspaper as saying.

In Abuja, Britain agreed to fund land reform to correct imbalances in land ownership in its former colony, where the bulk of commercial farmland remains owned by the white minority. The government of Zimbabwe committed itself to implementing land reform in accordance with the rule of law.

Last week, Mugabe accepted the agreement, saying Britain, which in the past had criticized the violent land seizures, was acting like a “partner”. The Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) and Zimbabwe’s main opposition party have welcomed the agreement, but said it would only be of importance if Mugabe implemented it. Meanwhile, police reported on Monday that a white Zimbabwean farmer and 24 farm workers were arrested on Saturday over the murder of two militants who were allegedly killed while moving onto a farm targeted for government seizure.