By Staff Reporter
HARARE — President Emmerson Mnangagwa has defended Zimbabwe’s land reform programme as an essential effort to correct colonial and historical injustices, underscoring the country’s diplomatic engagement at the World Governments Summit in Dubai this week.
Addressing international audiences in the United Arab Emirates, Mnangagwa framed the redistribution of land from white minority settlers to black indigenous Zimbabweans as a reclaiming of the nation’s sovereign rights.
“Yes, Zimbabwe has been under sanctions for decades as a result of us claiming our land from the British and making ourselves independent.
“We seized the land and gave it to our people.
“We have developed, and we are happy that, we have developed on our own and we feel very independent,” Mnangagwa said.
Mnangagwa reiterated his government’s view that the land reform initiative was not racially motivated ownership, but a restoration of rights for Zimbabweans.
“No, land did not belong to a race. It belonged to Zimbabweans,” he stated.
He further explained the historical imperative for land reform, recalling colonial dispossession.
“When the colonialists took land from us, time came when we asserted ourselves to take back our land.
“Those who wanted to have land at the same basis as the African people of Zimbabwe remained.
“But those who felt superior left,” he said.
The issue of land ownership in Zimbabwe traces back to the colonial era under British and white-minority rule, when sweeping laws consolidated vast swaths of fertile land under a small white settler population, leaving indigenous black communities confined to less productive areas.
Under the 1930 Land Apportionment Act, approximately 49 million acres were designated for white ownership — despite whites representing a tiny fraction of the population — while black Africans were relegated to smaller, often marginal reserves.
By the time Zimbabwe attained independence in 1980, a small number of white commercial farmers controlled vast tracts of prime agricultural land.
Around 6,000 white farmers held 15,5 million hectares, whereas more than 700,000 indigenous Africans lived on 16,4 million hectares of poorer-quality land.
Zimbabwe’s land reform began under former President Robert Mugabe’s government in the early 2000s with the Fast Track Land Reform Programme, which aimed to transfer land from predominantly white commercial farmers to Black Zimbabweans.
While the programme was lauded by many for redressing historical inequalities, it also drew sharp international criticism for its often chaotic implementation and its economic consequences.
The redistribution affected some 4,000 predominantly white-owned farms and resettled hundreds of thousands of black families.
In recent years, the government has initiated compensation payments to some former white farmers under a 2020 deal aimed at fostering economic re-engagement with Western countries.
At the summit in Dubai, Mnangagwa’s remarks were part of a broader effort to highlight Zimbabwe’s evolving foreign relations and investment agenda.
His government has been seeking to attract international partnerships while defending its policy choices that sought redress for historical injustices.
Mnangagwa’s reiteration on land reform on the global stage underscores how land remains central not just to Zimbabwe’s domestic policy but also to its diplomacy and economic strategy.
