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Country-focused Bulletins
Feb 26, 2013 Zimbabwe: New Narrative on Land Reform, 2
"Under the fast track land reform, 169,000 farmers have
received land since 2000. Most are small farmers under
model A1, but the fast track also includes model A2 with
land for wealthy people prepared to invest in largerscale
commercial farming--maintaining the dual
agriculture policy that had continued since the colonial
era. The 146,000 A1 farmers moved quickly onto their land
and are using more of the land than their white
predecessors. A2 farm allocation was more competitive and
politicized ... [nevertheless] The bulk of settlers are
'ordinary' people ... Undoubtedly some are political
elites or what are sometimes called 'cronies,' which we
guess to be 5% of farmers and 10% of land." - Hanlon,
Mantengwa, and Smart, in Zimbabwe Takes Back the Land
Feb 26, 2013 Zimbabwe: New Narrative on Land Reform, 1
Whether to take credit for it or to cast blame, both
ZANU-PF and most of its critics attribute responsibility
for the land reform in Zimbabwe since 2000 to the party
of Robert Mugabe. Although much of the debate in the
media about the book "Zimbabwe Takes Back Its Land," has
repeated this familiar point and counterpoint, the
authors in fact deny this premise, arguing that the
principal force behind the land reform and how it was
implemented was not ZANU-PF but Zimbabwean farmers.
Jul 2, 2012 Zimbabwe: Diamonds Fund Parallel Government
A new report from Global Witness reveals that Zimbabwe's
Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) appears to have
received off budget financing from a Hong Kong-based
businessman as the CIO and other security agencies continue
to prepare to influence elections due to take place sometime
in 2013. Global Witness reports that CIO members exercise
joint control over Sino Zimbabwe Development (Pvt) Ltd, a
diamonds, cotton and property company in Zimbabwe, in
collaboration with businessman Sam Pa, a prominent member of
the Queensway Syndicate, a network of companies with a track
record of negotiating opaque resource for infrastructure
deals across the African continent.