‘Cautiously optimistic’: Zimbabwe’s white farmers see opportunity after Mugabe exit
Starting in 2000, about 4,500 farms were seized with the approval of Mugabe in a furious reaction to white landowners increasingly backing the MDC opposition party
Standing outside the gates of the farmhouse from which he was evicted in 2008, white Zimbabwean Deon Theron knows he will never get his land back. But he does believe that Robert Mugabe’s fall after almost 40 years in power could lead the new government to encourage white farmers to play a part in reviving the country’s key agricultural sector.
Thousands of white farmers were forced off their land by violent Mugabe-backed mobs or evicted in dubious legal judgments, supposedly to help black people marginalised under British colonial rule.
The farms, however, were often allocated to Mugabe’s allies and fell into ruin, leaving tens of thousands of rural labourers out of work and sending the economy into a tailspin as food production crashed.
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“I was evicted after intimidation, violence and court cases,” said Theron, 63, who now runs a guest house in the capital Harare and a dairy processing business. “I don’t expect my land to be returned, but I do think the government will explore getting people who have the skills back on the farms – and that means younger people from evicted families.”