Land reform in Zimbabwe

In Zimbabwe, the question of land distribution and redistribution (land reform) was perhaps the most crucial and the most bitterly contested political issue today. However, moves since May 2005, by the Mugabe regime to move disaffected urban MDC supporters out into the rural areas by intimedation and violence (aka Operation Murumbutvina, otherwise known as Operation "Cleaning

History

The white farmer population had largely come to Southern Rhodesia in the century since the establishment of the British colony, which was named after British financier Cecil Rhodes, whose company, the British South Africa Company, violently seized the land from the indigenous Ndebele and Shona people in the 1890s. Many members of the white community had supported the Unilateral Declaration of Independence regime of Ian Smith, which had taken over the government in the mid-1960s and broke with Britain over proposals for eventual black majority rule.

Related Topics:
Southern Rhodesia - Cecil Rhodes - British South Africa Company - Ndebele - Shona - 1890s - Unilateral Declaration of Independence - Ian Smith - 1960s

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There was a marked racial imbalance in the ownership and distribution of land. Zimbabwean whites, although making up less than 1% of the population, owned more than 70% of the arable land, and the best land at that. Since then, of the 4,500 white farmers, only 300 remain on farms. The rest lost their farms to confiscation, making 600,000 farmers, their families and workers lose their livelihood.

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