The family of Zimbabwe’s former president, the late Robert Mugabe had accumulated 24 farms when he died last year in violation of the country’s land reform principle of one-man-one-farm.
Here is a man who had at every opportunity would defend the fast-track land reform programme which dispossessed some white farmers saying not all of their land was being taken. At some point he said:
Every one of them (white farmers) is entitled to at least one farm, but they would want to continue to have more than one farm. More than one farm, indeed 15, 20, 35 farms, one person. These are not figures I’m just getting from my mind, they are real figures, so no farmer is being left without land…
We don’t mind having and bearing sanctions banning us from Europe, we are not Europeans. We have not asked for an inch of Europe, any square inch of that territory. So, Blair keep your England and let me keep my Zimbabwe.
An unnamed relative of the Mugabes said although the family grabbed Smithfield Farm in Mashonaland Central, which is an amalgam of five farms, they are not farming on that consolidated farm.
The source added that the farm had been subcontracted and leased to the Rudland Brothers—Simon and Harmish.
Most of the white farmers who were dispossessed of the land at the turn of the millennium migrated to neighbouring countries where they started farming.
More: TheNewsHawks