Fears that Mugabe encourages new farm invasions

President Robert Mugabe said Thursday (10.07.09) his government will not pay any compensation for land seized by his government over the past 10 years heightening fears that he is encouraging another onslaught of farm invasions.
 
Mugabe accused the largely white Zimbabwean commercial farmers of siding with the British and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s part at a time his government was trying to apply pressure on the British government to disburse funds to buy land for resettlement to the previously disadvantaged black population.
 
“The responsibility for compensating the farmers rests on the shoulders of the British government and its allies,” Mugabe said.
 
He was responding to a question by Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) President, Trevor Gifford, during the plenary session of an ongoing International Investment conference being held in Harare.
 
Gifford asked the Zimbabwean leader when his government would start paying farmers who have lost their source of livelihoods through farm takeovers.
 
According to the CFU, 175 farmers are due to stand trial for refusing to vacate their land to make way for the new farmers.
 
Mugabe blamed former Tony Blair administration of reneging on British pledges to pay compensation for repossessed land.
 
“I told Blair to keep his money and we were going to keep our land,” Mugabe said.
 
Ironically this comes at a time when Vaughan-Evans, a director of Zimbabwe’s Commercial Farmers’ Union (CFU), was axed to death at his home.  Vaughan-Evans represented the CFU in the Midlands Province.
 
The rich farmlands that are at the centre of Zimbabwe's often violent land dispute
 
The Daily Telegraph reported that Vaughan-Evans, who was in his late seventies, was killed on the eve of his wife Jean’s 80th birthday. The couple was attacked in their home in Gweru, Zimbabwe’s third largest city.
 
Gifford, the CFU president, said Vaughan-Evans, a renowned agriculturalist and conservationist, died from head wounds after he was attacked by an intruder.
 
Mugabe is adamant that it is point of fact that in the Zimbabwean constitution that compensation for land repossessed by government shall be paid by the British government.
 
“We did pay compensation for improvements and developments…we have honoured that part. This is our stand. It is a British responsibility,” he said.
 
“The farmers themselves let themselves down. Instead of supporting us in appealing to Britain, so Britain could realize that they had this responsibility towards paying compensation, they have sided with the British.”
 
Mugabe said farmers who were being approached for land should be willing to cede their farms and join hands with his government in appealing for compensation.
 
Mugabe went on to ask foreign investors to come and invest in Zimbabwe, saying the establishment of the inclusive government has created a conducive environment for investment in Zimbabwe.
 
“Zimbabwe upholds the sanctity of property rights,” Mugabe said in his main address.
 By John Mokwetsi