Commercial Farmers' Union of Zimbabwe

Commercial Farmers' Union of Zimbabwe

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I set money aside for Zim land reform — Blair

I set money aside for Zim land reform — Blair

http://www.theindependent.co.zw/

Friday, 20 May 2011 09:00

By Bernard Mpofu

FORMER British Prime Minister Tony Blair has for the first time revealed 
that London, during his term in office, had set aside funds for Zimbabwe’s 
land reform programme.
He insisted that the UK was still committed to bankroll a genuine exercise 
via a United Nations agency despite President Robert Mugabe’s hard-line 
stance on the emotive issue.

Blair recently told the NewAfrican magazine that plans by his government to 
fund the controversial land reform exercise, over a decade ago, failed to 
take off amid fears that Mugabe’s administration would misappropriate the 
funds.

While Mugabe has publicly announced that government had “successfully 
completed” the land redistribution exercise,  Blair said Britain’s current 
coalition government led by David Cameron are prepared to sponsor  a genuine 
land reform programme in Zimbabwe.

During the chaotic reform exercise in 2000 thousands of white commercial 
farmers forcibly lost vast tracts of land to native Zimbabweans. Britain was 
prepared to make £36 million available to Zimbabwe provided the UNDP 
approved a plan that reduced poverty and enhanced production, reports at the 
time indicated.

“One of the myths that Mugabe used was this thing that we wouldn’t provide 
money for land reform,” Blair said. “I set aside the amount of money they 
needed for land reform, but one important thing was that the money had to go 
through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and not through his 
government machine, because if it went through his government machine it 
wasn’t going to be used for the purposes for which it was directed. 
Therefore, that was the issue; not that we wouldn’t fund the land reform, we 
were happy to do that. And still are, by the way!”

Blair’s sentiments were, however, contrary to what the then British 
Secretary of State Claire Short wrote to the Zimbabwe’s government.

On November 5 1997 Short wrote a letter to then Agriculture minister 
Kumbirai Kangai that Britain would not fund the land reform exercise, a 
decision which according to Zanu PF, riled Mugabe and prompted the chaotic 
land programme.

“I should make it clear that we do not accept that Britain has a special 
responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe,” she wrote. 
“We are a new Government from diverse backgrounds without links to former 
colonial interests. My own origins are Irish and as you know we were 
colonised not colonisers,” read the letter. “We do, however, recognise the 
very real issues you face over land reform. We believe that land reform 
could be an important component of a Zimbabwean programme designed to 
eliminate poverty. We would be prepared to support a programme of land 
reform that was part of a poverty eradication strategy but not on any other 
basis.”

In September 1998, the UNDP organised an international land donor conference 
where Britain and other Western countries pledged to fund a systematic land 
reform programme.

The Commercial Farmers Union had agreed to release about 120 farms for the 
first five-year pilot land reform exercise. This did not take off as two 
years down the line war veterans embarked on farm invasions after the 
electorate voted against Mugabe’s constitutional proposals.

The white commercial farmers took their cases to the Sadc Tribunal 
challenging the seizure of their properties. The tribunal ruled in their 
favour, but the government did not abide by the judgment and in turn 
questioned the legality of the regional body.

The legality of the Sadc Tribunal could today come under scrutiny at the 
Sadc heads of government summit in Windhoek, Namibia, although the Zimbabwe 
delegation is planning to block it.

Meanwhile, the government of national unity formed in February 2009 which 
undertook to carry out a land audit of the chaotic exercise has been slow in 
carrying out the audit, citing limited funding.

Critics contend that the audit is likely to expose Mugabe’s cronies accused 
of multiple farm ownership. The European Union has since the formation of 
the inclusive government in 2009 pledged to support the audit, a move Mugabe’s 
Zanu PF strongly opposes.

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