Controversy rages over land nationalisation (Zimbabwe)

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The Minister of Special Affairs in charge of Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement, John Nkomo last week announced that the State would move to nationalise land and replace title deeds with 99-year leases while those in wildlife and conservancies would get 25-year leases.
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“It would be unconstitutional to nationalise land because the constitution does not provide for that; the State can only acquire land,” (Lovemore Madhuku) said. It is feared that some high ranking government officials who acquired multiple farms for themselves in direct contravention of the one man-one farm principle could take advantage of the nationalisation programme to keep the farms that President Mugabe has said they should surrender, because it would then be difficult to determine the status of specific properties.
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The Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers’ Union (ZCFU) president Davison Mugabe said there was need to ensure that the farmers’ plans were not compromised by the question of tenure. “To start with, take a look at the 99-year lease and what it would mean to a farmer. As a farmer, one has a number of issues and programmes he is aiming to achieve at a set time. What is important to everyone in the farming sector is security of tenure. That is one of the issues we seek to settle first,” he told the Sunday Mirror.
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Mangaliso Kubheka of the South African-based Landless People’s Movement, said the process of nationalisation ran contrary to the ideals of land reform that entailed empowering ordinary people.
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http://www.africaonline.co.zw/mirror/stage/archive/040613/national6283.html

controls the nation.

A few European corporations have controlled the land until now.

I think this prevents the problem of those big corps turning around and buying the land back from the people who are impoverished by the ramifications of the historical inequitable distribution of land.

99 years is about the amount of time it will take to make sure that Zimbabwe has a ZIMBABWEAN middel class which which can compete with European corporations.

I think this program is genius.

I think they have some smart development economists advising the Zimbabwean government.

"A few European corporations have controlled the land until now." Got a source for that statement? From what I've read Zimbabwe has gone from a nation able to raise it's own food to one in which the majority of citizens are facing food shortages.

The farms were owned and successfully operated by families providing food for the nation and employment for many, until the owners were forced out or fled taking their equipment and leaving fields unplanted. Much of the land is now out of production. Odd that Mugabe's buddies ended up with big tracts of land. Keep in mind the farms aren't the size that lent themselves to sustenance farming. They're large tracts which require significant capital investment in equipment and the employment of many to operate.

Mugabe's stunt has devastated the country.

There are different views of how to proceed.

Not everybody there supports letting Mugabe's pals keep the farms.

Their number one crow was tobacco sold to Europeans. Since the people who were making money off it were Europeans, there wasn't much food or money in it for Zimbabweans.

...are still trying to recover from the stupidity that was land re-distribution,the great REFORMA AGRARIA of the 70s. It sent the farming methods back to the age of the Incas,not even the Incas, they were brilliant in there farming,back to the stone age more like it. Another African nation down the sh** hole.

make sure Peru has a government that doesn't work for the people.

Their problem is NOT land reform.

Joe Stiglitz has that land reform is the only way to break the cyle of poverty in developing countries.