Free Republic

Zimbabwe is to start paying compensation this year to thousands of white farmers who lost land under former president Robert Mugabe’s land reform nearly two decades ago, the government said, as it seeks to bring closure to a highly divisive issue. Two decades ago Mugabe’s government carried out at times violent evictions of 4,500 white farmers and redistributed the land to around 300,000 black families, arguing it was redressing imbalances from the colonial era. But land reform still divides public opinion as opponents see it as a partisan process that left the country struggling to feed itself. President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s...

...Mnangagwa struck a conciliatory tone in the months leading up to the election. Declaring that Zimbabwe was “open for business,” he amended a law requiring local ownership of diamond and platinum mines. He signaled his intent to end farm seizures and vowed to sell off failing state enterprises. He even wrote a New York Times op-ed calling for democracy and equal rights for all citizens. But Mnangagwa is tied to numerous human rights abuses, including overseeing a series of government-ordered massacres between 1982 and 1986 known as the “Gukurahundi.” An estimated 20,000 civilians from Zimbabwe’s Ndebele ethnic group were killed....

THE Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade is planning to meet members of the United States Congress and the European Union to discuss the removal of sanctions as part of its re-engagement drive. In an interview yesterday, committee chairperson, Kindness Paradza said the committee's major thrust is re-engagement and international trade. "Foreign Affairs is the face of Zimbabwe and we have been given an additional mandate which is international trade. So, what we are going to do this session is to assist the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in re-engagement programmes, as well as bringing in foreign direct investment...

HARARE, Zimbabwe — A new documentary on massacres by Zimbabwe's military … The screening in the capital, Harare, would have been almost impossible under former leader Robert Mugabe, who led the country for 37 years and resigned following military intervention in November. President Emmerson Mnangagwa, a longtime Mugabe loyalist and enforcer who succeeded him, has tolerated documentaries and plays critical of the government amid promises of a "flowering of democracy." But none has taken such direct aim at Mnangagwa as the new documentary on the army operation he supported as state security minister between 1983 and 1987. "Gukurahundi genocide: 36...

China offers development assistance but not everyone is happy about it. The people of Zimbabwe head to the polls today on July 30, 2018, to cast their votes in the first election after the abrupt end to the almost forty-year rule of Robert Mugabe, the country's only ruler since independence in 1980. The two major candidates to watch are Mugabe's former vice president and now leader of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) Emerson Mnangagwa, the replacement for the late opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and the candidate for the Movement for Democratic Change—Tsvangirai (MDC-T), Nelson Chamisa. The drama that...

A white Zimbabwean farmer previously kicked off his land by the former Robert Mugabe regime received a hero’s welcome from his community Thursday following the new government’s return of his land, the Associated Press reported. Guided by military escort, Robert Smart became the first white farmer who came back to the land he once owned before it was seized nearly two decades ago by Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party. In 2000, Mugabe ordered land seizures and evictions of white farmers and their families. According to the Telegraph, of the estimated 4,500 white farmers prior the seizures, only several hundred remain. Zimbabwe’s...

A South African spy captured by Zimbabwean counter intelligence is alleged to have been severely tortured before agreeing to co-operate with local officials, the Institute for Security Studies said in Pretoria today. The spy recently was nabbed by Zimbabwean Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) operatives at Victoria Falls and under questioning, revealed the names of his collaborators within the governing Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu(PF)). Chris Maroleng, an analyst, said the spy would not have naturally agreed to work with the Zimbabweans as they had alleged and therefore must have reached his "pain threshold". "The Zimbabwean CIO are renowned...