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"So they probably took over a farm from someone who had to flee in an earlier round. Perhaps her reward for her early support of Mugabe?"

I disagree.

When Mugabe took over in 1980 most of the commercial farmers had figuratively packed their bags and were about to become expatriates.

Mugabe made a speech in which he asked the farmers to stay and help him to build a "new Zimbabwe". The farmers did so and until 2000 had continued to maintain Zimbabwe as the breadbasket of southern Africa.

The commercial farmers and Mugabe's Zanu PF did not like each other and remained political opponents but a modus vivendi based on that undertaking continued until 2000. By 2000, 15 percent of the Commercial Farmers Union members were blacks. They acquired their land in the normal manner of purchasing it at arms length at fair market value. Britain had offered to help Zimbabwe to finance the purchase of commercial farm land for redistribution at fair market value.

Mugabe lost a plebiscite on a constitutional amendment that would have effectively made him lawful president for life. The commercial farmers and their employees helped to defeat the plebiscite. It was only then that the farm invasions began.

Until 2000 the farmers were left at peace because it was in the best interests of Zimbabwe's economy to do so. Land was bought and sold and mortgaged and worked in the same manner as commercial farms throughout the common law. Farmers expected that someday much of their land would be redistributed but had every confidence that it would be done (with Britain's help) by purchase or expropriation at fair market value and without violence.

Instead Mugabe chose violence, thuggery and murder to effect his "land reform".