'Mugabe was misunderstood,' says Mnangagwa

JUSTICE, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa on Thursday said President Mugabe was misunderstood when he recently spoke against resettled farmers sub-letting their land to white former commercial farmers.

Speaking at the launch and hand over of A1 Settlement permits at Chifundi Farm in Mhangura, Mashonaland West Province last week, President Mugabe said government ministers and others who were in the habit of either sub-leasing land, renting it out or holding onto the farms for prestige and using them for weekend retreats would lose them to others on the waiting list.

Mnangagwa told the Senate on Thursday in response to MDC-T Senator Lillian Timveos who had said the President was recently quoted in some sections of the media pronouncing that land ownership by white people will no longer be allowed in Zimbabwe.

"Assuming that he said what you say, which of course is not correct, the President is very clear on that issue. We've nowhere in legislation, where it says that whites are not allowed to own land," said Mnangagwa.

He said there were whites in the country who have been issued with offer letters, meaning that they are entitled to hold land like any other citizen in this country.

"You misunderstood him, but let me explain to you so that you don't have problems. The President said that those farmers, black or white, who have been issued with land and proceed to sub-lease to the whites who owned the land before; that is not allowed," added Mnangagwa.

"This is one reason why we are talking about land audit. The whites took land from our forefathers, the goats and our women, chaired by this guy called Selous, the Loot Committee. So, we took it upon ourselves to return to ourselves, our own inheritance but that was not without cost."

Mnangagwa said there was a cost to recovering the land through the armed liberation struggle.

"Tens and thousands of our people perished in that struggle to get our land back. Yes of course, for a period of 10 years, we agreed at Lancaster House that we shall allow the exchange of land on the willing buyer/willing seller for a period of 10 years.

"After 10 years, that provision expired and fortunately, I was the Minister of Justice. So I introduced the legislation for the acquisition of agricultural land, which had been stolen, back to its owners," he said.

The minister said the piece of legislation was not discriminatory.

"The first thing that we did was to acquire all agricultural land, which was possessed by white colonial regime settlers, back to the state," he said.

"Then we had a reform programme where we now allocated that land to our people. Initially, we had something like 4,500 whites owning over 70 percent of our agricultural land."

Mnangagwa said through the process more than 265,000 Zimbabweans now own land previously owned by about 4,500 whites. He said Zimbabweans were good people who even allowed the "former thieves" to be allocated land.

"So, when His Excellency the President pronounced ‘Banket', he never said no white man shall own land. That is not correct. There is not a single province in this country where there are no white farmers," Mnangagwa said.

"We've white farmers all over, who we have allowed to continue holding land and issued offer letters to them to own the land. So, we're not in conflict with the constitution."

Mnangagwa said the constitution gives right of ownership of property to citizens and that white citizens were also entitled to those rights and were not being discriminated against.

He said Zimbabwe was a model of democracy and civilisation in that it did not revenge against the injustices inflicted on it by its former colonial master, Britain.

"It's possible there are other people who didn't understand the statement of His Excellency the President, which was very clear that our law is against subletting of land to those from whom we got the land from. Anybody in this country who wants land, they go on the list for allocation of land. We don't force people to own land," said Mnangagwa.

He said it was unfortunate that some black people stayed away at the prime time when the land was being distributed and were now crying foul. "Those who are failing to utilise the land in the manner that we would want them to, we will take it away from them. We have provisions in the Act to withdraw land from those whom we have given to, if they do not utilise the land. It is there for utilisation and for production to support this country," said Mnangagwa.

"So Madam Senator, I hope that I have done some justice to your question and that the primary value is that, we as Zimbabweans are democratic, are Christian, are civilised and we do not apply the barbaric principles of the whites like when they occupied this country."