Zimbabwe signs billion-dollar deal to repay white farmers
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe’s government on Wednesday signed a deal with former white farmers to pay them billions of dollars in compensation roughly two decades after they lost their land in often violent invasions.
But because the government does not readily have the money, the farmers will be part of a team tasked with raising the cash.
About 4,000 farmers lost large swathes of land when Zimbabwe’s late leader Robert Mugabe launched the often-chaotic land reform program which he said was aimed at addressing colonial-era land inequities. White farmers had owned the majority of prime farmland. Agricultural land now belongs to the government.