WAR VETERANS DEMAND THAT PRESIDENT MNANGAGWA’S shelves his US$3,5 billion compensation pact with white former commercial farmers, describing the move as highly discriminatory, degrading and akin to selling out the liberation struggle.

WAR VETERANS DEMAND THAT PRESIDENT MNANGAGWA’S shelves his US$3,5 billion compensation pact with white former commercial farmers, describing the move as highly discriminatory, degrading and akin to selling out the liberation struggle.

Mnangagwa last month signed the global compensation agreement with white former farmers displaced during the country’s 2000 land reform programme.

Under the deal, government pledged to cough out US$3,5 billion compensation for infrastructural developments on the seized farms.

The deal followed the commitment by government to return seized farms to black farmers as well as farms protected under Bilateral Investment Protection and Promotion Agreements (BIPPAs).

The latest agreement, announced in a joint statement by Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube and newly-appointed Lands minister Anxious Masuka on Monday, has, however, triggered varying reactions with some viewing it as a reversal of the land reform programme.

But the little-known War Veterans Pressure Group wrote to Mnangagwa through their lawyers, Kanoti and Partners, ordering the Lands ministry to issue a public statement withdrawing the compensation offer.

“We act at the instance of our clients, War Veterans Pressure Group, an informal political grouping of veterans of the national liberation struggle. Please note our interest,” part of the letter, dated August 28 to Masuka, read.

“Clients are shocked government acted in the manner it did and view the agreement as a sell-out understanding.”

“Clients instruct that we demand on their behalf, as we hereby do, that you, within 48 hours of receipt of this letter, issue a response to ourselves, together with a public statement admitting that the recent July 2020 compensation for claimed farms improvements agreements between government and the former settler white race progeny citizenry was discriminatory on the grounds of race and constituted cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment upon the indigenous black race, citizens of this nation, coming as the agreement did ahead of or for having prioritised settler white race concerns as against the local black race’s own long outstanding precolonial and also post-colonial sufferances under the mechanisation of the occupying settler white race and, therefore, that government is withdrawing from or suspending performance.”

The war veterans, who form the bulk of beneficiaries of the land reform programme, said the compensation should be suspended, and interests of the indigenous farmers be catered for first.

Yesterday, various stakeholders blasted Mnangagwa’s offer to compensate black farmers and for seized land under BIPPA.

Under the new order, complying with section 295 of the Constitution, indigenous farmers and farmers protected under BIPPA will be compensated for land and developments made on the farms. White former commercial farmers, who form the majority, are covered under the compensation agreement of July 20.

The two categories can be given money or may apply to go back to their farms, and the resettled farmers displaced to alternative farms.

About 116 farms under BIPPA were seized and new farmers resettled, while over 400 indigenous farmers were displaced after their farms were compulsorily acquired.

Norton MP Temba Mliswa (independent) challenged government to come clean on land ownership, saying the new order signalled the reversal of the land reform programme.

Tendai Biti, the MDC Alliance vicepresident said the new law by government was a policy U-turn.

Biti said anything to do with land compensation needed an Act of Parliament.

But exiled former Local Government minister and ex-Zanu-PF commissar, Saviour Kasukuwere said: “This is going backwards. Yes, the Constitution recognises land compensation, but this should be done through an Act of Parliament. The minister should table the Bill before Parliament.

“People suffered to have restoration of land ownership, and now, two ministers without knowledge of the history of the land reform come to make this announcement without consulting critical stakeholders.”

MTHWAKAZI DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE statement on Zanu-PF back licking the West a.k.a compensation to commercial farmers is that Mthwakazi Democratic Alliance Youth League notes that in a way to cheat their way out of the current economic turmoil, the incumbent ZANU PF regime led by ED Mnangagwa has back stepped on the land reform programme initiated in 1999 under Robert Mugabe’s rule. We seeing this as back licking the West in a bid to bed them into trusting and supporting them into a much anticipated 2023 harmonised election victory.

ZANU PF has evidently failed to keep the economy afloat and attract investors therefore this is a dire stance to appease the former colonial masters to buying into the failing agricultural sector in order to catapult Zimbabwe to be the Southern African bread basket it used to be and thereby forging a wolf in sheep’s clothing face to the outside world. We believe that land reform must not be reversed but instead be shared fairly to ordinary deserving Mthwakazi and Zimbabwe people as the ZANU elites enjoyed the privilege of owning up to 16 farms like Grace Mugabe.
Ordinary Mthwakazi people and the Zimbabweans anticipated that the land was further going to be redistributed amongst them, stripping it off the die hard ZANU elites but they saw it fit to compensate the former colonial masters in order to save face. Hence the sitting government’s move was not taken with Mthwakazi people and Zimbabweans at heart but just for them to eat in the same plate with the West and in a bid to reverse their individual targeted sanctions.

Although ZANU PF cronies may defend this stance as a way of boosting investor confidence and bilateral relations with the West, it defeats the whole cause of the colonial war, land ownership and lays bare the incompetence of the ZANU thugs who had unlawfully took over the farms just to waste them without resources and capital. So this is just a ZANU PF move to rewrite their wrongs in the face of the British although the move is faced with lots of challenges such as the previous land owners coming back to run down farms with most machinery having been sold plus facing resistance from the current ‘owners’ which will result in the government fighting its own to accommodate former colonial masters.

The question still stands, why should we compensate strangers for our land? Why pay our colonial masters for the land we claim to have been fighting for against them? Or is it a question that, although they are white, they are still Zimbabwean born? Or are we compensating them because they developed the land they stole from us? Isn’t it a bad time to be compensating groups of people as we are currently faced with the corona virus of which we should be channelling every dime to? This seems to be an either calculated or a miscalculated move depending on one’s point of view. Calculated in the sense that people are so absorbed into the corona virus issue and really are not paying attention to current affairs such as this one hence there is less scrutiny to the government’s stance. Miscalculated in the sense that instead of funding crucial sectors of the economy, we are busy compensating our former colonizers. Besides this compensation stance the government is taking, Zimbabwe has through time proven that there are no property rights, the state can at any time take land it sees fit as witnessed in Hwange.

ZANU PF elites must know that, they shouldn’t use our civic rights to right their wrongs, if the land compensation has to take place, every Mthwakazi and Zimbabweans’ interest has to be taken into consideration, a people driven leadership is the way to go, that’s why we stand with MTHWAKAZI DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE fighting for a tomorrow that is inclusive as far as the nation’s interest is concerned in Mthwakazi.
MDA Youth League Secretary General – Thabiso Nxumalo
– newsday