President Mugabe the Pioneer of Land Reform in Africa

Upon attainment of independence on April 18, 1980, Zimbabwe tumbled into a racially skewed agricultural land ownership structure where the minority white large-scale commercial farmers, constituting less than 1% of the national population occupied 45% of prime agricultural land. 75% of this is in the high rainfall and most productive areas of Zimbabwe.

However, it is quite embarrassing to note that 60% of this large-scale commercial land was lying idle while the black majority remained confined to over-crowded infertile areas which the colonial system dubbed ‘Reserves.' This was the most piercing matter to the bone marrow which gave blacks the impetus to take up arms and sacrifice their lives to wage the war of liberation struggle against the imperialist settlers who usurped our land without regret.

It is against this back-drop that His Excellence, President Robert Gabriel Mugabe, alongside other nationalists committed their effort and dedication to break the selfish and callous system led by the tyrannical white minorities. Cde Mugabe remained resolute and focused on the need to see blacks enjoying the fruits of their national heritage.

To satisfy this Zimbabwean dream, Cde Mugabe and his government led an expeditious and successful Land Reform Programme which was meant to empower the historically disenfranchised blacks, and correct the colonial imbalances which existed unbridled for close to a century when whites ruled Zimbabwe illegally between 1890 and 1979.

The Land Reform Programme came to transform lives, and to resuscitate hope for blacks who had stayed for decades in abject poverty under a racially discriminatory system.

Cde Mugabe's land redistribution programme transferred the means of production from the colonial masters to those who deserve land as their birth-right. It is an indisputable fact that land is a universal capital good which constitutes the best economic value to humanity on any part of the globe. The white men rejoiced this resource at the expense of the indigenous people.

President Mugabe made it his core business to ensure the fruition of the ambitions of the liberation war fighters, the dead and the living. The programme involves restructuring of access to land and an overhaul of the existing farming system, institutions and structures so as to embrace blacks with equal opportunities. This includes access to markets, credit, training and access to social, developmental and economic amenities. It seeks to reinvigorate agricultural productivity, which ultimately leads to industrial and economic empowerment and macro economic environment in order to raise the living standards for the entire population.

The façade of the selfish inequitable distribution of land in Zimbabwe dates back to the days of the colonial era as spelled out in the British South Africa Company Royal Charter of 1889. The appalling legal consequence of The Order in Council was entrenched in the sovereign and the property rights in the British Queen, thus nullifying the former Zimbabwean traditional leadership style. Large stretches of prime land became alienated as they relegated indigenous people to small pockets of marginal and fragile communal areas which could not sustain their needs.

The colonial Land Apportionment Act of 1930 set aside 51% of land for a few thousand white settlers and prohibited the indigenous people from owning and occupying lands in white commercial farming areas. The African Purchase Areas were created between the Indigenous reserve areas and the Commercial white settlers' areas.

The indigenous reserves, metamorphosised into Tribal Trust Lands, following the gazetting of the Act in 1965.  This situation therefore, witnessed the creation of three separate categories of land classification in Zimbabwe namely: the Communal Areas, Small Scale Commercial and Large Scale Commercial Areas. The direct negative impact of the Land Apportionment Act was the expropriation of traditional ancestral land which some families held for generations.

Commercial farming was a preserve for families of European descent. They got title deeds to land. Ian Smith's colonial and Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) government policies favoured whites. Rural road networks programs serviced European farming areas.

By 1979, the white Zimbabweans made up a paltry 5% of the population, and counting only 4500 farmers who owned 70% of the most fertile land, while the rest of the citizens were languishing in poverty, practicing subsistence farming in rocky and infertile fields which could hardly yield enough to feed the household.

The Lancaster House Agreement, which negotiated a ceasefire, paved the way for holding of elections, which were resoundingly won by Cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe as the first post independence Prime Minister.  

The three-month long Lancaster House conference nearly failed over the critical land issue. The Lancaster House Agreement required Prime Minister Robert Mugabe's government to wait ten years before instituting land reform, which they complied to. The British agreed to fund land reform on a "willing buyer, willing seller" principle, meeting 50% of the costs of land purchase and investments on social amenities such as, water, schools and clinics in order to convert large commercial farms into viable resettlement areas for the peasantry. About 71,000 families settled on 3.5 million hectares of former white-owned land under this programme.

In 1985 the Land Acquisition Act was drawn in the spirit of the 1979 Lancaster House "willing seller, willing buyer" clause which gave the government the first right to purchase excess land for redistribution to the landless. However, the Act had a limited impact, mainly because the government had no adequate funds to compensate landowners. In addition, white commercial farmers mounted a vigorous opposition to the Act, and because of the "willing seller, willing buyer" clause, the government was powerless in the face of such resistance. The ultimate result was that, between 1980 and 1990, the government acquired merely 40% of the targeted 8 million hectares of land, and about 71,000 people were resettled.

To accelerate the Land Reform Programme, President Mugabe's Government enacted the 1992 Land Acquisition Act which removed the "willing seller, willing buyer" clause. The Act gave the government the legal force to buy land compulsorily for redistribution, and a fair compensation was to be paid for land acquired. Landowners had the right to challenge in court the price set by the acquiring authority. Opposition by landowners increased throughout the period of 1992 to 1997.

In 1997 the government gazetted 1,471 farmlands it intended to buy compulsorily for redistribution to landless Zimbabweans. On 5 November 1997, Britain's then secretary of state for international development, Clare Short, wrote a letter to the Zimbabwean Government denying British obligation to the land issue:

"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. 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. 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 June 1998, the Zimbabwe government published its "policy framework" on the Land Reform and Resettlement Programme Phase II, which stated its envisaged compulsory purchase over five years of 50,000 square kilometres from the 112,000 square kilometres owned by white commercial farmers, public corporations, churches, non-governmental organisations and multinational companies.
In September 1998, the government called a donors conference in Harare on Land Reform and Resettlement Programme Phase II to inform the donor community and involve them in the program: Forty-eight countries and international organisations attended and unanimously endorsed the land program, appreciating that it was essential for poverty reduction, political stability, economic growth and national development. They agreed that the inception phase, covering the first 24 months, should start immediately, particularly appreciating the political imperative and urgency of the proposal.

The Commercial Farmers Union offered to sell to the government 15,000 square kilometres for redistribution, but landowners grudgingly dragged their feet.

A social explosion ensued owing to the reluctance of the white commercial farmers to cooperate with calls for equal distribution of land. The restless and impatient Zimbabweans voluntarily marched on white-owned farmlands to demand what rightfully belongs to them. The programme was dubbed Fast-track resettlement program. The white commercial farmers suffered the wrath of their arrogance as they were forced off the land. The land was divided into small-holder production schemes and commercial farms called A1 and A2 schemes respectively.

Today a large section of the Zimbabwean society is enjoying farming production on the prime land which they have been deprived of for decades. Credit goes to the expert leadership of His Excellence, President Mugabe who faced the challenge head-on to serve the suffering masses. He set a classic precedent case study for Africa on what it means to attain total independence for his people.

Zimbabwe is currently taking giant steps to restore its bread-basket status as new farmers are fast learning the best farming skills which can stir a boom in the farming sector.