Mugabe to ask whites back in land grab reversal

Peta Thornycroft:

President Robert Mugabe has begun to reverse his "insane" land grab and offer some white farmers the chance to lease back their holdings in Zimbabwe.

With the fastest shrinking economy in the world, Mr Mugabe has had to backtrack on six years of chaos and his own determination to rid the country of all white farmers.

In an orgy of violence, Mr Mugabe seized the land, homes, equipment and infrastructure of about 4,000 white commercial farmers who produced almost half of Zimbabwe's foreign currency.

The U-turn is expected to be announced within days. The ruling Zanu-PF party's politburo has been informed and selected journalists in the state-controlled media have been briefed on how to spin the policy reversal.

About 250 whites remaining on small portions of their farms will immediately be offered state leases for the land they used to own. Some will be hoping that their full land holdings will be restored at a later stage.

The leases will, farmers hope, give them some legal protection from local warlords continuously trying to evict them or seize their equipment or crops.

In a second stage, the leases will be extended to some white farmers who have already been evicted, particularly where there is no activity on that land. Some fled to Britain, Australia, New Zealand or South Africa and are desperately homesick.

The government is expected to admit in the next few days that it has only used about 50 per cent of the land it seized. In reality, land economists say the figure of idle land is nearer 80 to 90 per cent.

The new policy is understood to have been approved by Mr Mugabe but it is unlikely he will announce it, as the government hopes to play down the U-turn.

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