What better opportunity is there for Zimbabweans to compare and contrast life under the two systems – that we have had the misfortune of enduring under – than the period when the ruling establishment loved to tell all who dare listen about the “ruthless brutal systemic repression of colonial rule”?
What I love so much about all this “exposing of Rhodesia’s cruelty” is that this then provides the people of Zimbabwe a chance to understand what this “cruel life” exactly entailed, and then analyse precisely how that has differed to what we are now undergoing in an “independent Zimbabwe”.
This is also a once-a-year opportunity for the so-called “born frees” (those born after the country’s independence in 1980) to hear firsthand traumatizing personal testimonies from those who suffered immeasurable brutality under the colonial regime – and then, ascertain for themselves (without any undue influence from any quarter) whether there was any difference to th
What compensation, to whom and why? theindependent.co.zw - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theindependent.co.zw Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Corn fields are harvested at Ivordale Farm on August 1, 2018 outside Harare, Zimbabwe [Dan Kitwood/Getty Images]
On August 31, the government of Zimbabwe announced that foreign white farmers settled in the country who lost land between 2000 and 2001 under former President Robert Mugabe’s controversial programme of land reform designed to empower landless Black peasants could apply to get it back.
To enforce this dubious arrangement, the government will revoke offer letters to Black farmers who were resettled on the land formerly belonging to white farmers. And where restitution proves impractical, white farmers will be offered land elsewhere.
A month earlier, the Zimbabwe government had already agreed to pay $3.5bn in compensation to local white farmers “for infrastructure on the farms they lost” when their lands were forcibly taken by the government.