Zimbabwe’s payments to former white farmers reach $508million

Bloomberg

Zimbabwe said that compensation to White farmers for land seized 26 years ago has now reached $508 million, as the southern African nation seeks to restore access to international capital markets.

“The payments came through after the farmers had accepted and subscribed to the bonds,” said Deputy Finance Minister Kudakwashe Mnangagwa, referring to dollar notes that are part of the reparations. Compensation also included cash payments of $12.6 million, Mnangagwa told Bloomberg in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city, on Wednesday.

In 2000, then-Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe encouraged the invasion of White-owned farms by Black subsistence farmers and youths, saying it would make up for colonial-era injustices. A number of White farmers — alongside hundreds of their workers — were killed and about 4,000 were forced off their land.

The seizures prompted international sanctions, and in 2020 the government agreed to pay White farmers $3.5 billion in compensation as it sought to build relations with the international community.

It subsequently altered the terms of the deal to include dollar bonds as part of the payoff, but the revamped offer was rejected by a number of the farmers.

“The bonds are not foisted on the individual. The fact that they have been paid, partially been paid in cash and the remainder in bonds, is acceptance,” Mnangagwa said.