Harare
THE ZIMBABWE GOVERNMENT is offering formerly white-owned farms for free to Chinese state-owned firms in a desperate bid to revive the key agricultural sector, say well-placed sources in Zimbabwe. Details of the planned land-for-investment scheme are still uncertain, but with President Robert Mugabe vigorously pursuing a “Look-East” policy after falling out with the West (because of his government’s poor human rights record), the president was looking for new deals to capture foreign currency. Unfortunately it appears that Western firms, including a Virginian tobacco company, are being drawn into schemes with the Chinese government, which has been supplying arms to Zimbabwe.
Reports had been multiplying recently that Mugabe was inviting former white landowners back to farm in Zimbabwe, but this appears to be a fiction to cover up for his plan to bring Chinese farmers in to grow tobacco and other crops.
