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monday march 23 2020

Janusz Negri and his family have not returned to their farm since it was seized in 2001
JANUSZ NEGRI

Zimbabwe starts giving back seized

farms
Jane Flanagan, Cape Town

Monday March 23 2020, 12.01am, The Times

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Twenty years after Zimbabwe started grabbing thousands of

mostly white-owned commercial farms the government is
giving some of the land back.

The partial reversal of Robert Mugabe’s policy is seen as

essential if the country hopes to end its pariah status.

Farmers targeted by new regulations include those whose

properties should have been covered by bilateral protection
agreements with Britain, South Africa and Germany among
others, and hundreds of “indigenous” land owners.
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 The seizures that began in 2000 caused economic chaos from
World
which the former British colony has not recovered. It is
su ering its worst drought since independence in 1980, but
swathes of fertile land lying fallow are chiefly responsible for
food scarcities that have left half the 15 million population
facing starvation. The UN food programme said that it needed
£170 million to feed the hungry in the first half of this year.

Although Zimbabwe’s main commercial farmers’ union has

cautiously welcomed the move, those entitled to benefit
represent a fraction of the dispossessed, it said.

About 450 landowners will be entitled to apply for the return of

title deeds or compensation, most of them local black farmers
and about 150 whose nationalities were covered by bilateral
agreements and treaties.

More than 3,500 white farmers, many of them now elderly and
still waiting for a settlement, will continue to remain in limbo,
Ben Gilpin, head of the Commercial Farmers Union of
Zimbabwe said. “New regulations give better rights to many
foreigners than locals,” he said. “Land reform legislation has
been about discrimination and that needs to end. When
Mugabe came to power white farmers were encouraged to stay
on and then we became the enemies.”

Each application will be considered by a committee chaired by

the department of lands management, which then recommends
its merit to a committee chaired by the department’s director.

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 Tendai Biti, an opposition MP and former finance minister, said
World
he would “put up a fight” in parliament against the new
regulations, describing it as “typical of President Emmerson
Mnangagwa’s government to help cronies and white friends”,
adding: “This is a reversal of the land reform programme, so it
must be clear whether there is change in government policy
regarding the repossessing of land. If so, then it is a matter for
the constitution.

“We would rather there was an audit and full disclosure, rather
than a coterie of the president’s friends being put back on their
land with a veneer of legality.”

The rise to power of Mr Mnangagwa, 77, who moved against his

former mentor Mugabe in a bloodless coup in November 2017,
was initially welcomed by the international community.
However, a botched election 18 months ago and military
crackdowns on unarmed protesters have left Zimbabwe more
isolated than ever. Winning the trust of western governments is
essential to opening funding channels to alleviate su ering and
reboot the economy.

The South African government, whose farmers form the

majority of those a ected by the failure to respect past bilateral
agreements, said many had lined up funding to return to their
land. The details of any restitution are still to be set out but it is
likely that returning farmers may have to accommodate those
who settled on their land.

Case study
Born in Zimbabwe to Italian parents who had bought land in the
northeast, Janusz Negri and his family were given 24 hours to
leave their farm in 2001 and have never been back.

Mr Negri, 60, is hopeful that he may yet return to his 12,000

acres at Maryland Farm to “start all over again”. Italy is one of
the countries that had bilateral investment agreements with
Zimbabwe before violent land grabs began.

The Negri family are hoping to get back

their 12,000 acres
JANUSZ NEGRI

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 “We could have gone to Italy but I am an African at heart and
World
want to do the job I was trained for and loved to do,” he said.
“My wife thinks I am mad and I am not as young as I was but I
have one last project left in me.”

Mr Negri said that one of his three sons had expressed an

interest in going back to work their farm in Mashonaland East.

Mr Negri, who studied at the Royal College of Agriculture, as it

then was, in Cirencester and is fluent in Shona, a Zimbabwean
language, employed 2,000 farm workers to tend his beef cattle
and grow maize and tobacco.

He and his wife, Diana, 58, had built accommodation, a school

and a clinic for their sta and were named runners-up in
Zimbabwe’s maize grower of the year for 2001, months before
they were forced to flee.

Since losing his land, Mr Negri has worked in seed development

and lives in Harare, the capital. The area around the town of
Macheke, where he owned three properties, was the scene of
some of the most violent land grabs. “We just left with the
clothes on our backs and our car, we lost everything else,” he
said.

Tractors and irrigation equipment were left and in recent years

63 subsistence famers and their families have settled there to
work a pocket of land. “If I could go back, I would give them
jobs, or buy from them,” Mr Negri said. “Certainly, they could
stay.”

Politics Africa South Africa

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Comments (42)

jw191116
Newest

J Add to the conversation...

SJ 44 MINUTES AGO
S
It's taken 20 years for them to reach the conclusion they've made
a mistake. After Corvus 19 has done it's worst there'll be plenty of
land for all to farm. Too cynical?

Reply 2 Recommend Report

Disgusted Tunbridge Wells 2 HOURS AGO

D
The problem is that colonialism makes such good economic
sense. Before the Romans colonised Britain, it was an
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 impoverished land inhabited by warring tribes. Those warring
World
tribes had an e cient, impartial, system of law imposed upon
them, enforced by the Roman legions. The Romans built
“infrastructure” in the form of straight usable roads, to facilitate
trade. Britain prospered under Roman rule and towards the end
of the Empire, when non civilised races invaded, bringing death
and destruction, the inhabitants begged the Emperor to send
legions to protect them - in vain.

In those days, of course, “racism” was not a recognised concept. It

was never suggested that the British were racially inferior
because they were tall and fair skinned, or that the Romans were
superior because they were short and dark skinned. In those
days, an African could be Emperor, if he was “civilised” and a tall,
fair haired, blue eyed German would be considered only suitable
for manual labour as a slave, because he was “uncivilised”.

In Africa, the basic problem is racism. If those living in Africa

were divided, not by race, but by who was civilised and law
abiding and who was not, on entirely objective grounds, then
some progress might be made.

Reply 7 Recommend Report

LHM 16 MINUTES AGO Disgusted Tunbridge Wells

L Shame we don’t have the straight roads anymore

Reply 1 Recommend Report

IleDeFrance 2 HOURS AGO
I SPQR 58 MINUTES AGO Disgusted Tunbridge Wells
Not a penny in aid should go to Zimbabwe.
S The main problem in Africa is tribalism
The Zimbabwe
Replypeople
4 areRecommend
the architects of this disaster. ItReport
is black
man-made, not a natural one. They made their beds.

Almost all the black ones but also a foolish white minority voted
for black government. Most had supported violent guerilla action.
Rhodesia was prosperous with a well-nourished black population
and a food exporter.

A few black Zimbabweans have now belatedly seen the light. All
those who went to Europe should be forced to return. Most will
have at best done nothing to stop Mugabe, at worst they were
guerilla fighters or pro-independence activists. It is utter
hypocrisy to reject white rule but then emigrate to white-ruled
Europe as 'refugees' , or to demand financial aid from European-
ruled countries.

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 Zimbabwe now belongs to the black people. Fine. But then they
World
have a duty to accept , live with or improve the mess they created.
It is no longer any of our responsibility. Not an ounce.

Reply 13 Recommend Report

Disgusted Tunbridge Wells 1 HOUR AGO IleDeFrance

D The problem with Rhodesia was that the white minority
government had no legal authority. As a British colony,
under international law, the white administration could
claim some form of legitimate authority. The British
colonial government endeavoured to impose the rule of
law, unifying a people divided by tribal loyalties.

After UDI, the white minority government had no

legitimate authority - essentially, it was simply a form of
tribalism. It could never be respected by the black
majority. As part of the British Empire, the black
population saw themselves as having rights under the
law. They hoped for something better as an independent
Commonwealth nation. They might have achieved this, if
Simon Adams 2 HOURS AGO
S tribalism had not resurfaced.
A heavenly paradise , trashed by uneducated natives who are too
Reply Recommend Report
stupid to even feed themselves.

Reply 16 Recommend
Show all 1 replies Report

I am feeling rather weary..

I 57 MINUTES AGO Simon Adams

I think its turning into something similar in this country

with the thick and ignorant ignoring government advice
on separation.

Reply 1 Recommend Report

Show all 2 replies

Wemmick 2 HOURS AGO Simon Adams

W
Too oppressed rather than stupid.

Reply 1 Recommend Report

Show all 2 replies

Toti Calling 2 HOURS AGO

T
The land was seized by white farmers in colonial days. It is time
that blacks own such land instead of living like slaves of the
whites. Were blacks allowed to own and in those apartheid days?
Of course not.
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 Reply 1 Recommend Report
World
Show 2 previous replies

Andre 21 MINUTES AGO Toti Calling

A Your argument is racist.

Reply Recommend Report

DW123456 24 MINUTES AGO Toti Calling

D Was not seized it was unused land that was purchased
and then they spent generations turning into fantastic
farms that employed loads of people with schools and
access to medicine. The farms were then given to
government cronies who in a few years were turned back
allie lewisto 2 HOURS AGO
scrub land.
A
These farmsReply
are now4 in an advanced state of Decay and neglect.
Recommend Report
The Times is showing one point of view only. This is common
when it comes to anything related to White People and Africa.
Many White farmers who had their property and hard work
stolen from them are now saying- Why go back to build up these
Farms when it’s likely that Zimbabwe’s Black African leaders will
just steal them back once they are up and running again.

Reply 18 Recommend Report

Ella Bennett 3 HOURS AGO

E
Maybe we’ll now start handing back the artifacts we grabbed from
Africa during colonial times..

Reply Recommend Report

Show 1 previous replies

Simon Adams 2 HOURS AGO Ella Bennett

S
Mud huts, wooden spoons, and stone axes, thanks Africa
you’ve really given the world a lot.
oh yes Ebola and Aids.

Reply 14 Recommend Report

allie lewis 2 HOURS AGO Ella Bennett

A
Name them please.

Reply 2 Recommend Report

Show all 3 replies

James Lawson XIX 4 HOURS AGO

J
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 This is not a new o er. Mugabe made a similar o er himself
World
some years ago. Some dispossessed white farmers did indeed
return, only to be fleeced by the government. The infrastructure
is simply not there. Cheap manual labour in abundance is
necessary but insu cient of itself. Modern farming needs
fertilizers, chemicals, farm machinery, a distribution and supply
system that works without inteference from corrupt o cials
lower down the government food chain. Zimbabwe simply
cannot guarantee any of this.

The country that is really benefitting from dispossessed white

farmers is the former 'front-line State' of Zambia. Others have
found
Blue a new future
Laguna in Mozambique.
5 HOURS AGO
B
What a mess
Reply 10 andRecommend
South Africa is next. Report

Reply 9 Recommend Report

James Murray 5 HOURS AGO

J
Quite frankly, I don't care what sort of agreement is being made
to hand over the confiscated farmlands, I would not trust the
Zimbabwe government's far as I could throw them.

Would you?

Jim Murray

Reply 20 Recommend Report

michael shortland 5 HOURS AGO

M
"The UN food programme said that it needed £170 million to feed
the hungry in the first half of this year." I had NO idea we were
bailing out the country, rather than stripping its leadership of its
assets. Shameful.

Reply 8 Recommend Report

ianstuartmc 5 HOURS AGO
I
Land seizures from white settlers began in 1980! Twenty years
before the article says. By 2001 the economy had been in ruins for
decades. The article really should get its facts right

Reply 8 Recommend Report

Catherine P 7 HOURS AGO
C
Such a great tragedy for a beautiful country and people.

Reply 4 Recommend Report

allie lewis 2 HOURS AGO Catherine P

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 South Africa is going the same way.
World A
Reply 1 Recommend Report

Illich Shem 8 HOURS AGO

I
Strip Mugabe and his cronies of everything.

Reply 2 Recommend Report

Show 1 previous replies

nicola Jessop 1 HOUR AGO Illich Shem

N
Mugabe is dead

Reply 1 Recommend Report

Ella Bennett 2 HOURS AGO Illich Shem

E
Read a book

Reply Recommend Report

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