White farmers 'not invited'
05/05/2006 14:56 - (SA)


Harare - A cabinet minister in Zimbabwe has categorically denied the government is inviting white farmers - dispossessed during the controversial land reform campaign - back to their farms, according to reports on Friday.

State security minister Didymus Mutasa said: "No white farmer is being invited back."

The minister, one of the most senior in President Robert Mugabe's government, said reports that the authorities were backtracking on the land reform programme, launched to international criticism in 2000, were wrong.

Mutasa was quoted as saying: "They are lying. I have never spoken to any foreign journalist and all their claims are wrong."

White farmers apply for leases

There had been confusions over claims that the authorities, worried by the downturn in agricultural production, might be considering inviting back white farmers.

Several reports had said white farmers were applying for leases to rent back their land from the state.

Mutasa said white farmers still on their land were being told to apply for leases because in some cases the government wanted to cut down their farm sizes.

Farms being reduced in size

He said: "If the state considers that the farm is too big then it is going to be reduced... That is what is happening."

About 4 000 white commercial farmers used to own most of Zimbabwe's most fertile land before 1999. Now, new black farmers had replaced most and there were only a few hundred white farmers left on the land.

Mutasa said: "We hope that these white farmers will refrain from doing agriculture in a political way, they must just be farmers and resist from politics on the land."

White farmers stoked the ire of Mugabe because in many cases they were believed to be supporters of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).