Zimbabwe’s eviction promise: cold comfort farm
Jan 4, 2013 9:29am by Tony Hawkins
This week’s announcement that Zimbabwe will no longer evict owners from
properties covered by international investment protection agreements has
been derided as “locking the stable door after the horse has bolted” by John
Worsley-Worswick, who heads Justice for Agriculture (JAG), an activist
group. He has little faith in the pledge by Herbert Murewa, lands minister,
to honour the terms of Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection
Agreements (BIPPAs) that Harare has signed with foreign governments.
This week, Murewa said farms covered by BIPPAs would no longer be
“acquired” – in effect expropriated since the government has so far refused
to pay compensation for farms that have been taken over. “We will respect
the agreements we have” he said – but since 116 of the 153 farms supposedly
protected by BIPPAs have already been expropriated, his statement means than
less than a quarter of protected properties will remain in their owners’
hands.
On the face of it, Murewa’s announcement represents a concession on Harare’s
part since from the very outset of the so-called Fast Track Land Reform
Programme in 2000, the Zimbabwe government has insisted that it will not pay
compensation for its own land acquired from evicted – mostly white –
farmers. Any compensation would have to be paid by the former colonial
power, Britain.
So by promising to respect the BIPPAs, Murewa has opened a Pandora’s Box in
terms of compensation. Worsley-Worswick is sceptical, noting that although
the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) ruled
that Harare should pay compensation of some €24m to a group of Ditch farmers
evicted ten years ago, the farmers have still not been paid.
A report by President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party says that the Von Pezold
family, which owns large estates in Zimbabwe also covered by a BIPPA, is
seeking compensation of a reported $600m (equal to 5.5 per cent of Zimbabwe’s
GDP) in an action before ICSID. Since Zimbabwe already has foreign debts of
$12.5bn (116 percent of GDP) – half of which is in arrears that are
accumulating at a rate of $500m a year – the government is in no position to
pay compensation even if it wanted to.
Murewa’s statement seems certain to re-ignite demands for compensation from
over 3,000 evicted white farmers not covered by international agreements.
Compensation disputes are likely to spill over into Zimbabwe’s search for a
debt forgiveness agreement with its international creditors. Zimbabwe is on
the brink of signing a letter of intent for an IMF Staff Monitored
Programme, due to come into effect this month, as a first step towards
restructuring its foreign debts.
Murewa’s statement and court findings will make gloomy reading in some
European capitals, especially London. Even if there is a change of
government in Zimbabwe during 2013, which is far from certain, Harare’s
demands that Britain, as the former colonial power, should foot the
compensation bill, are likely to remain just as strident as when Mugabe and
the UK’s former Labour administration fell out over the same issue.