By Kenneth Chikanga
South African farmers who lost land under Zimbabwe's controversial land acquisition policy could get some of their land back as soon as President Robert Mugabe's government has finished a land audit of the land redistribution exercise.
Gadzira Chirumhanzu, the Zanu-PF spokesperson for South Africa, confirmed this week that some seized farms, or at least part of them, would be returned to affected farmers as soon as the audit was completed.
Last month Mugabe ordered an audit of the land reform programme to assess progress in Zimbabwe's controversial land redistribution exercise. Preliminary results for the audit are expected by the end of next month.
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'Our government is applying the one man, one farm policy' "Our government is applying the one man, one farm policy. Those farmers who had very large farms will get portions of their land back, or compensation for their improvements. The rest of the land will be shared out among landless peasants," Chirumhanzu said.
All farmers whose land had been expropriated were free to contact government officials in the affected regions to discuss permissible farm sizes per person, and how they could go about resuming their operations, he said.
Last year the Democratic Alliance compiled a list of 75 South African farmers in Zimbabwe whose land was overrun by settlers led by veterans from Zimbabwe's liberation war. Many of them were still South African citizens, but some had renounced their South African citizenship in an attempt to protect their farms, and to be allowed to remain in Zimbabwe.
A Zimbabwean weekly newspaper, the Financial Gazette, published excerpts from a letter that Aziz Pahad, the deputy minister of foreign affairs had written to affected farmers saying Harare had agreed to return land seized from South African citizens.
According to the letter, the concession was made in terms of the Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (Bippa) signed by the two neighbours.
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