Land Grab
The truth about Mugabe's violent land grabs
President Mugabe wanted to take back 1/3 of all Zimbabwe’s productive farmland from white farmers and give it to the country’s peasants. In 1998, a mere 4,500 wealthy whites owned a staggering 50% of Zimbabwe, and Mugabe says they had until August that year to give that land back.
As Europe sats down with African leaders in Cairo in March 1998, Zimbabwe's colonial hangover will be taking centre stage. Land was an issue throughout Zimbabwe’s rocky transition to Independence. But when it came, Mugabe was generous to the whites - allowing them to stay on. Indeed it was his anti-racism policies that won him favour. Now many feel he is trying to divert criticism about corruption in government by pushing through land reform that will see black farmers re-settled onto land seized by the British colonialists. The whites say it’s State-sanctioned robbery - but the government says that’s exactly what the white man did.
Produced by ABC Australia
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