The root causes of the crisis which led to the Fast Track Land Reform Programme from April 2000 up until 2010 lay in the failure of the1998 Donors Conference to assist the Zimbabwe Land Reform Programme; the British Government’s insistence on the willing-buyer-willing-seller principle of Land Reform as well as the rejection of the draft Constitution during the referendum, writes Dr Felix Muchemwa in his book The Struggle for Land in Zimbabwe (1890-2010) that The Patriot is serialising.

The new Constitution alternative and the 2000 Referendum
THAT the Donors Conference of September 1998 had been a total failure is a position the Zimbabwe Government easily accepted.
On the other hand, the failure encouraged European settler-farmers to resist the Zimbabwe Government.
They even began a series of legal challenges to the Government on land acquisition, especially in respect of 804 farms out of 1 471 farms previously designated and gazetted in 1997.
The Government of Zimbabwe was not discouraged by the unfavourable outcome of the Donors Conference.
While well aware that without donor assistance, such massive land acquisition could not be carried out legally without further amendments to the Lancaster House Constitution, Government still maintained its target of 5 000 000 hectares to be compulsorily acquired for resettlement within five years.
The other alternative by which the acquisition could be legally done was, of course, through the introduction of a completely new Zimbabwe Constitution and, that became the alternative the Government preferred.
Consequently a post-Lancaster House Zimbabwe Constitution draft was put together and put to a referendum in 2000.
The Draft Constitution contained land clauses which demanded compulsory land acquisition without compensation.
This, of course, was strongly opposed by the white settler community (Moyo p.151), which strongly campaigned against it through the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU). (Stiff, 2000: p.308)
The Draft Constitution was consequently rejected during referendum.
The voter turnout was a very low 26 percent of the registered voters, i.e. approximately 1 312 738 voters out of the over
5 000 000 registered voters.
The ‘No’ votes against the Draft Constitution were 697 754 which amounted to 54 percent of the total vote cast, and they were mostly from urban centres.
The ‘Yes’ votes totalled 578 210 or 46 percent of the total vote cast. (Stiff, 2000: 310)
Of interest is the fact that of the 697 754 ‘No’ votes, 405 243 were cast in the main cities of Harare, Bulawayo, Gweru, Mutare, Masvingo, Chinhoyi, Chegutu, Kadoma and Kwekwe where a high number of unemployed youths and domestic workers were easily mobilised by European settler-employers.
To a large extent, the unemployed youth phenomenon effectively turned the vote against the Draft Constitution.
European settler-farm workers had also been easily mobilised by the European settlers to vote ‘No’.
Jambanja: The ‘Fast Track’ Land
Reform and Resettlement Programme: April 2000
The root causes of the crisis which led to the Fast Track Land Reform Programme from April 2000 up until 2010 lay in the failure of the 1998 Donors Conference to assist the Zimbabwe Land Reform Programme; the British Government’s insistence on the willing-buyer-willing-seller principle of Land Reform, which defied Zimbabwe’s legal framework of compulsory land acquisition (Matondi-Hungwe p.72), as well as the rejection of the Draft C onstitution during the referendum.
Thereafter, embittered war veterans began to invade European settler-farms in earnest. (Moyo p.311-30)
They found ready allies in the rural African peasants, who, desperate for land to settle on, demanded ‘restitution of ancestral lands.’ (Scoones et al, 2010: p.22)
The peasants began occupying white settler-farms in a countrywide ‘jambanja’ or ‘invasion’. (Moyo p.150)
Only 12 farms had been invaded by February 2000. (The Herald, March 1 2000 p.1).
However, by March 1 2000, the invasions had risen to 48 farms and then to more than 386 by March 8 2000. (Stiff, 2000: p.338)
While pointing out that it was the European settler-farmers who had influenced their workers to vote against the Draft Constitution which contained clauses on compulsory land acquisition (even ferrying their farm workers and domestic workers to the polling stations with specific instructions to vote against the Draft Constitution), President Mugabe directed that the war veterans should remain on the occupied European settler-farms, ‘as long as they (were) peaceful’. (The Herald, March 11 2000 p.1)
High Court eviction order versus the Executive
By the middle of March 2000, villagers in Murehwa, Mutoko, Mudzi, Uzumba-Maramba-Pfungwe, all in the northern part of Mashonaland East Province, had risen in support of the war veterans and invaded European settler-farms close to their communal areas, in a measure meant to expedite land redistribution. (The Herald, March 17 2000 p.1)
In an expected reaction, the European settler-farmers appealed to the High Court to get the war veterans evicted under trespass and squatter laws (The Herald, March 18 2000 p.1) and on March 17 2000, Justice Paddington Garwe issued High Court Orders for the eviction of the war veterans from the now more than 400 invaded farms within 24 hours.
The High Court Orders were directly issued to the Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri and his officers and they stipulated that all those served with the Orders (Mashonaland Central Governor Cde Border Gezi and the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association leader, Dr Chenjerai Hunzvi) should ‘disregard any executive instructions that they (might) receive from any person holding such powers in Zimbabwe’.
This of course meant the President of Zimbabwe or his ministers. Justice Garwe further gave orders to the CFU to announce the eviction orders on radio for three consecutive days. (The Herald, March 18 2000, p.1)
The defiance of the High Court Orders by the war veterans was also not an unexpected reaction.
When asked to intervene, Dumiso Dabengwa, the Minister of Home Affairs responsible for the Police, claimed that Justice Garwe’s Orders prohibited any ‘executive’ including himself, from issuing orders to the police, and that, therefore, he found his hands tied. (The Herald, March 20 2000 p.1)