Next For The Chop
Mugabe Targets German Timber Plantations
Seizure of land violates bilateral agreement

27^th October 2004

THE Zimbabwean government has ignored a report by Special Affairs Minister for Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement John Nkomo, urging the state to avoid seizing land protected by international accords, and is now targeting a big German-linked timber company as well as sugar and citrus estates.

After taking away most of the farm land in the country, the government published in the Government Gazette on Friday its intention to expropriate larger estates, some of which are protected by bilateral government agreements.

The Zimbabwe government will take five plantations owned by Border Timbers, the country's largest timber producer. The Borders Timbers' land taken by the state includes Tilbury, Cambridge, Imbeza, Mahugara and Walmer estates more than 34-million hectares.

The company's sawmills process more than 350000m' of logs each year, and it also runs a veneer factory.

An official land audit compiled by a committee led by Nkomo said early this year that land protected by bilateral agreements should not be taken.

The committee's report said there was need to regulate acquisitions of farms owned by foreigners whose governments had bilateral investment protection in Zimbabwe.

Vice-President Joseph Msika, who is chairman of a cabinet land-reform task force, has said that the government would not acquire land protected by investment agreements.

The seizure of the land is in violation of an agreement between Zimbabwe and Germany. The Germany-Zimbabwe Investment Protection Agreement signed in 1995 by representatives of both governments was put in place to protect Border Timbers' properties and assets from the Zimbabwean government.

In terms of the agreement, Zimbabwe gave assurances to Germany that Border Timbers' land would not be targeted for seizure.

Other countries, including SA, which have citizens who own land in Zimbabwe, have also been affected by the confiscation of land.

Other Zimbabwean officials, in particular Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, have been pushing to have such assets seized.

A number of ministers, including Moyo, have been named in official reports as new land barons because they have more than one farm.

Zimbabweans are being evicted from farms they had invaded, to make way for ministers and other top government officials.

Moyo clashed a few months ago with Msika over the seizure of Kondozi farm in Manicaland province.

The horticultural farm, which supplied its products to SA and European markers, has been run down in a short time by the state-run Agricultural Rural Development Authority.

In addition to the timber plantations, the government has also taken over Aberfoyle Estates a major tea exporter and Eastern Highlands Plantations, one of Zimbabwe's few producers of washed Arabic coffee.

The land seized from the two tea and coffee estates measure a combined 2,3million hectares.

More land has also been taken from the sugar-producing Hippo Valley.

Dumisani Muleya - Business Day (Johannesburg SA)