Talk:Land reform in Zimbabwe

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Number Of White Farmers Killed[edit]

" The murder of about three hundred white farmers during the war " - what is their source? The Catholic Commission's report from March 1997 states that only 1 white farmer was killed in Nyamandlovu prior to the 1980s.

"While the impact of dissidents on civilians in the communal lands was perceived as less harsh by far than that of 5 Brigade, the impact of the dissidents on the small commercial farming communities was dramatic. For example, in Nyamandlovu, which lies in the first Case Study area, ZIPRA had been responsible for killing only one white farming couple in Nyamandlovu during the 1970s, but in the 1980s, dissidents killed 21 people in this commercial farming area, inclusive of farmers, their families and at times, their staff. Many farmers sold their ranches, or moved their families into nearby Bulawayo for protection, leaving productive farmland idle.

SRC: REPORT ON THE 1980’s DISTURBANCES IN MATABELELAND & THE MIDLANDS Compiled by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe, March 1997 http://www.rhodesia.nl/Matabeleland%20Report.pdf 83.84.100.133 (talk) 21:54, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As has been discussed before on other talk pages, the Catholic Commission's report was a microstudy of only two districts in the entire nation of Zimbabwe. The figures cited there only reflect those two districts and cannot be cited as being reflective of the situation in the whole country. --Katangais (talk) 22:37, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, so what is the source for this number? 83.84.100.133 (talk) 19:23, 14 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Same one cited in the article. --Katangais (talk) 23:54, 14 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Archive[edit]

Talk:Problems of land distribution in Zimbabwe/Archive 1 --196.27.120.7 (talk) 19:57, 4 February 2021 (UTC)nowadays land reform is important because 237 000 recived free farm land[reply]

Comments[edit]

Hello. Sorry if I am commenting incorrectly, this is my first time posting on Wikipedia. I think that there is a problem in the section called "impact on production". The two last sentences of the first paragraph lack proper sources. One of them refers to a current state of a affairs but links to a 2002 newspaper article, which in itself does not provide any foundation for what is stated in the sentence. The second statement does not have a source at all. 82.209.129.19 (talk) 18:22, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I apologize if you interperted by previous message as giving you credit for "rambling drivel" that presently exists. Your condescending and harsh tone is uncalled for. I have no idea who you are, but I would be extremely careful before I ever called anyone else's thoughts "ethnocentric". Furthermore, this is an article that is very valid provided it is not given the present Marxist, or any other, POV. --Hcheney 20:03, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Regardless of the current squabbles over this webpage. I will continue deleting out the racist language put in by some misguided person. Whether this person is a black nationalist or marxist looking for social wedges I have not the clue. Either way the previous language which praised racial land redistribution simply will not be tolerated and I will be on on everyday changing it if nessesary.

User:65.57.138.139:
Welcome to Wikipedia! To better collaborate with other users, please log on and get a user ID. At Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers you'll find information on becoming a registered user. BTW, here are some friendly words of advice. You're "editorializing," so to speak, in the article, which is a major violation of policy. In order to be an effective contributor, you'll have to play by the rules of the game. (This is why I have to revert your two recent changes for now.) For now, these indiscretions are understandable, given that you are a new user who hasn't been briefed on Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. So, please take a look at these pages and join the community. Otherwise, anonymous IP addresses can be blocked by one of roughly 150 admins (including myself) if the user comes across as willfully skirting policy guidelines (which is often called "vandalism"). 172 02:51, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Actually, you can stop editorializing" or "vandalizing" on the page shmuck. as far as you trying to stop my revisions go ahead and try. Everyone knows your version of events or shall I say the racist one is utterly ridiculous and helping thousands of men women and children starve to death eveyday in zimbabwe. So if you really beleive in a free encyclopedia perhaps you should stop being a crypto-fascist and let others who actually know what they are talking about contribute.

Shmuck? I don't get to hear Yiddish too often these days. Perhaps you'd like to build up our Yiddish-language related articles? BTW, I didn't write this article. I just like the idea of one existing, and keep offering to provide users with sources from academic journals. Relay your concerns to a more appropriate party. Search for the ZANU-PF website and send them a message. 172 05:09, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Protection due to vandalism[edit]

I am protecting this page as a response to weeks of vandalism by an anon with a shifting, proxy IP range. This is the same anon who also trolls User:Hcheney, User:172, and other Zimbabwe-related articles. If this page protection is as an inconvenience, I'll remove it as soon as possible upon request (so long as you're not the vandal, of course). 172 11:02, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I am fine with page protection, 172, but I don't think it was appropriate to remove my conversation with the vandal that dealt with the issues in question. Everyking 13:56, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Kind of a pity to lose that conversation, Everyking. ;) I particularly enjoyed the bit where he called 172 a hard-right National Socialist Marxist. One supposes that our friend 172 also edits the Socialist Worker, dabbles with insider trading, hugs trees, votes Republican, eats babies, and farts in the bathtub. (Assuming that he washes, of course. One can never be too sure with hard-right National Socialist Marxists.) Tannin
You can restore it. I guess since everyone now knows that I'm a Communist Jewish Nazi, hiding the vandal's insights are pointless. Since everything's out in the open, I also have nothing to lose by admiting the fact that I'm the leader of a breakaway faction of the Workers World Party that supports Bush in '04. 172 14:23, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
So you deny eating babies? Tannin
I deny that. That's a violation of Party discipline, after all. 172 14:29, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Thanks. This troll has been semi-lucidly ranting and raving on Talk:Daniel Wright. As soon as I suggested s/he get a user account, they immediately started vandalizing my user page. --Hcheney 14:38, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

This article POV problems i think. things like "landed gentry" are a bit out of place.

Hunzvi[edit]

Surely "hitler" Hunzvi should get a mention in this article? (actually, i know he does. i will put him in at some point) My last year at school was disrupted occasionally by this atrocity committed by Mugabe. I was lucky. I was not a farmer. Many had their farms forcibly confiscated with no prospect of compensation. There is a human aspect to this event that is missing from this article.

Besides, how can the govt seize land from one citizen to give it to another? Even the title is a load of tosh. Land Reform? Mugabe used Hunzvi and his army of "war veterans" (most of them about 3 years old when the zimbabwean bush war was occuring) as a political tool: to suppress the whites and the opposition (one and the same thing since there was and is only one party in opposition to Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF).


Timothy Stamps[edit]

The article contains the statement :

... but Timothy Stamp, Zimbabwe's finance minister, says £17m).

Stamps was the Minister of Health from 1986 to 2002. I do not believe that his portfolio ever included Finance. See [1]. Bob BScar23625 13:59, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Cronies?[edit]

The line 'Britain withdrew aid to the land reform programme, accusing Mugabe of giving the land to his "cronies".' is ok except for the use of the word "cronies". I don't really think that's appropriate.

It is the word used by the Commons foreign affairs select committeeː"rewarding his cronies with gifts of expropriated land". [2]
LaFoiblesse (talk) 2010-04-24 12:30 (BST)
So what? It shows bias and a non-neutral point of view. It is characterization. Never let ex-Rhodians edit Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MrSativa (talk • contribs) 08:06, 14 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

2008 land grab campaign[edit]

I felt it important to update this article on the current land grab campaign against the remaining white commercial farmers and black farmers who are supporters of the MDC in Zimbabwe. Ivankinsman (talk) 08:32, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Sorry I don't know how to make comments here. I just wanted to say that the new 2008 part is heavily biased and should be removed. /M.G. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.138.143.42 (talk) 17:55, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV[edit]

This article is still pretty biased away from land reforms, and does not highlight the fact that Britain did not cough up on the Lancaster House Agreement. Despite what this article says, it does not talk about the Zanu-PF view at all. Oh, by the way, I don't think the above rant is really necessary. This is the situation which Wikilove was designed for. Don't be anti-semetic either, that is certainly against rules and guidelines--HandGrenadePins (talk) 08:47, 1 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are right, Britain did not pay and maybe it should be mentioned, (I would stir clear of terms like 'cough up' ), why don't you make the changes yourself? It should be fairly easy to find reliable sources to add to that section.
Maybe, to balance it, you could add a reason, (sourced/official), as to why Britain stopped paying. That way it will be up to the reader to come to their own conclusions based on facts alone and there would be no POVs. FFMG (talk) 08:54, 1 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do I need to add that this entire article is written in a self-righteous tone, and completely from the point of view of the white farmers. There is no point of view of the people who actually fought for the liberation of Zimbabwe from Ian Smith's version of apartheid (complete with native reserves and 'protected villages') and made it the democracy that it is today, a democracy in which a treasonous party like the MDC can be elected to parliament and even stand for the presidency, even though Ian Smith swore there would never be democracy in Rhodesia, "Not in a thousand years". There is no representation of the blatant racism that gave rise to the fact that half the country ended up being owned by whites. Let alone why this should be redressed the only way possible - by land redistribution. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MrSativa (talk • contribs) 21:56, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The issue on this page is about land reform, which has been presented very poorly and in biased fashion. But topics like democracy, political parties etc are not relevant here. Babakathy (talk) 23:24, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the 'background' section should be improved, perhaps to include Rhodes' duping of the Matabele and the (possibly foreign) concept of land ownership. But I think that from the Lancaster House agreement on it is factual and sourced. If you think otherwise, feel free to discuss them here, or change the article with sourced references and neutral tone. Wizzy…☎ 08:19, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Generally, I think recent edits have improved the neutral point of view of the article, but please remember to provide reference to sources (online or offline) for the information. Babakathy (talk) 10:00, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It still, though, claims uncritically that the reforms were "disastrous" and that the primary recipients were political cronies - despite the fact that these claims are not only disputable, but pretty thoroughly debunked by the Scoones study cited later. The language is also pretty weird -- apart from anything else, "they often had to cede considerable parts to blacks"... srsly? Mlleangelique (talk) 12:42, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with the subject of propaganda, is that there are a large number of rhodesians being paid some of the $6 billion the US has spent in it's propaganda campaign against the Zimbabwean government. The problem for this article, is that there are a lot of statements made for which no sources are being given, which results in this Wikipedia article being nothing except a highly biased harangue against the Zimbabwean government and land reform, rather than an objective recounting of events, times, places and persons. If land reform was violent, how violent, how many people were killed, and what are the sources quoted? Inappropriate sources - the self righteous claim that land reform was "intended to alter the ethnic balance of land ownership", a highly contentious claim that denies the massive mathematical impossibility of continuing to have 1%, the colonial minority population, own 43% of the country. And who does this article quote for this contentious statement? Eddie Cross, the National Policy Coordinator for the foreign funded opposition party, the MDC. "The programme's targets were intended to alter the ethnic balance of land ownership.[1] " Source: Eddie Cross: Comments on various issues affecting poverty in Zimbabwe An electronic interview given to Black Electorate: A magazine in the USAMrSativa (talk) 08:09, 14 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Copyedit[edit]

In 5 edits today I have removed the "quotations" and "2008 campaign..." sections. Text of the former I have incorporated into appropriate parts of the article. The latter section, however, had to be deleted for copyright reasons: it comprised mainly word-for-word copying from a series of articles in the Telegraph. Referencing the articles does not stop it being a copyright violation! There is some useful material in the sources which could, with some effort, be incorporated into the existing date-by-date sections. However quite a lot deals with the Zimbabwean presidential election, 2008 and belongs in that article. Babakathy (talk) 08:12, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A complex picture and bad press[edit]

I modified the first sentence of the section since it didn't reflect what was said in the reference text. The researcher says in the article and I quote: "Zimbabwe’s land reform has had a bad press", then relate the bad press it had. Then end the paragraph he add :"As Zimbabwe moves forward with a new agrarian structure, a more balanced appraisal is needed. " Link of the reference: http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=34979:zimbabwes-land-reform-challenging-the-myths&catid=72:thursday-issue&q=scoones Analyzer99 (talk) 08:04, 13 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Climate Change[edit]

http://www.rnw.nl/africa/bulletin/starvation-stalks-zimbabwe-villagers-after-poor-rains Formerly a regional breadbasket, Zimbabwe's food production has slumped in recent years, a situation critics blame on veteran President Robert Mugabe's land reforms which saw the forced redistribution of white-owned farmland to new black farmers, some of whom lacked the means, skills and experience to farm. But the government blames the poor harvests on erratic rainfall patterns brought on by climate change.

Worth a mention or just a lot of hot air? Hcobb (talk) 02:07, 14 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Land redistribution[edit]

My addition of

As of 2012, much of the seized land remains in large plots in the hands of Mugabe's cronies and produces little, but the small plots remaining in the hands of ordinary black farmers are now producing quite well.

Comes from:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/world/africa/in-zimbabwe-land-takeover-a-golden-lining.html Large chunks of land were handed to cronies of President Robert Mugabe, many of whom did not farm them. It spurred a political crisis and violent reprisals by the security forces that have killed hundreds of people. Yields on food and cash crops plummeted.

Was I wrong? Hcobb (talk) 16:35, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No, you're not wrong. —Cliftonian (talk) 16:55, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The expression "as of 2012" is wrong, as the reference to cronies talks to the time of the start of the fast track land reform, not to who holds land today/2012. Therefore it's not relevant to aftermath. I'm not sure if it would anything new to the fast track land reform and violence section. Babakathy (talk) 11:14, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/10/robert-mugabe-land-reform Critics say that Mugabe loyalists remain the main beneficiaries,

What other references do you need? Hcobb (talk) 02:12, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Far as I can tell that's a good reference Hcobb. My issue above was your original addition was using a NYTimes article from 2012 that didn't say that. Babakathy (talk) 06:43, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So have put it in, even though the statement is rather vague and it's unclear whether "Mugabe loyalists" means politically-connected people or just people who vote ZANU-PF.Babakathy (talk) 06:48, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Land Distribution prior to 1980[edit]

I think the issue should be addressed more properly, some remarks are misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.150.220.209 (talk) 14:00, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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Geography[edit]

Reason for land reform program 77.246.55.239 (talk) 13:06, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What were the characteristics of the 300 white farmers that remained?[edit]

Were they mostly dairy farmers? " The difficult operational conditions created by the factors mentioned above resulted in a decrease in the number of registered commercial dairy farmers from 559 in 1987 to 165 in 2012" [3] Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 04:27, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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