Wikileaks: Delta boss planned deal to enable government to buy up 400 farms
Saturday, 24 September 2011 07:01
Delta Corporation boss Patrick Rooney told United States ambassador to
Zimbabwe Tom McDonald 10 years ago that his company was arranging a credit
facility that would enable the government to buy 300 to 400 commercial farms
that had been designated for acquisition.
According to a diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks Rooney told McDonald
on 2 November 2000 that part of the proposal was to relocate war veterans
occupying farms to the purchased farms.
He hoped that the move would help break the logjam on land reform and remove
the war veterans from the land resettlement picture, thereby demonstrating
to the international community that law and order was returning to Zimbabwe.
The proposal had already been accepted by Vice-President Joseph Msika and
was now going to be put to President Robert Mugabe.
Rooney feared that the proposal might be scuttled by Information Minister
Jonathan Moyo, Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo and Agriculture
Minister Joseph Made.