US embassy cable - 02HARARE1291

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 HARARE 001291 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
FOLLOWING TELEGRAM SENT ACTION SECSTATE INFO SADC, NSC, 
DEPT TREAS, NAIROBI, RIO DE JANERIO ON 24 MAY IS BEING 
REPEATED FOR YOUR INFO. 
 
QUOTE 
UNCLASS HARARE 001254 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: N/A 
TAGS: ECON, EAGR, PREL, ZI, Land Reform 
SUBJECT: DESPITE CORRECT WORDS OF AGRICULTURE MINISTER, 
THE VAST MAJORITY OF COMMERCIAL FARMS AND MANY 
CONSERVANCIES REMAIN OCCUPIED AND LISTED 
 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED, PLEASE PROTECT ACCORDINGLY. 
NOT FOR INTERNET POSTING. 
 
1.  (SBU) In a message carried on state television during 
the Sunday, May 19 evening news, the Minister for Lands, 
Agriculture and Rural Development, Joseph Made, said all 
the right things about formalizing the path forward in 
the land reform and resettlement program.  He assured the 
viewing audience that the process would be orderly and 
legal (the latter in terms of Zimbabwe's recently enacted 
laws that legalizes expropriation), and complete by end- 
August.  He also stated that occupiers on delisted 
properties, conservancies, church and other civil group 
lands, A-2 model designated farms, and properties 
protected under bilateral agreements, would be removed in 
coming weeks and resettled on properly designated lands. 
He said that commercial farmers would be entitled to a 
single farm and that if all farms were occupied, they 
wiould receive a new farm.  His meaning and intent were 
clear and unambiguous, and at face value could offer 
comfort to the dispassionate observer.  However, the 
reality on the ground, at least so far, is widely 
separated from the rhetoric.  There has been some 
relocation going on, mainly in Masvingo Province, but 
from diverse reports it has occurred on black-owned farms 
claimed by party higher-ups or those already distributed 
under the A-2 scheme (the indigenous, small-scale 
commercial farming scheme).  The independent press 
reported that occupiers were removed from farms recently 
ceded to the Speaker of Parliament (Emerson Mnangagwa), 
the Police Commissioner (Augustine Chihuri), and the 
Defense Forces Commander (Vitalis Zvinavashe).  American 
and German properties in the Save Conservancy, located in 
Masvingo Province, are still listed and still occupied. 
The press also claimed that at some properties the 
settlers were resisting transplant, threatening to attack 
if made to move and claiming the land as payback for 
their vote for the ruling party. 
 
2.  (SBU) According to the Commercial Farmers Union and 
others, no illegally-settled occupiers have yet been 
removed from white-owned farms.  We checked with the 
German, Dutch and Portugese missions and the EU here, and 
all of them report that, despite bilateral investment 
treaties and government assurances of corrective actions, 
no properties have been either delisted (as promised) or 
cleared of illegal occupiers.  The German Counsellor was 
especially critical of the GOZ's "lies and propaganda", 
saying that every German-owned property was listed 
despite assurances that this would be reversed (two weeks 
ago the German Foreign Ministry convoked the Ambassador 
from Zimbabwe to receive only yet more hollow 
assurances), and that use was being denied the owners 
despite the clear language of the investment treaty 
barring such appropriation without agreed-to, market- 
value compensation. 
 
3.  (SBU) The cause of Made's untypical behavior and 
sudden message to the nation may have been an unhappy 
Robert Mugabe.  Two reliable but independent sources told 
us that on May 18, the day preceding the Made message, 
the President, returning to Harare from a funeral, made 
an unexpected stop at a white-owned commercial farm 
northwest of Harare that has been a large wheat producer 
(by one account nearly 10 percent of the domestic crop). 
The unannounced arrival of the extensive entourage caught 
the farmer, a Mr. MacKenzie, by surprise, but he gave the 
head of state a brief tour as requested.  Mugabe pointed 
to a 75-hectare field occupied only by some dagga huts 
and wilted subsistence-style maize patches and asked why 
it was not planted with wheat.  The farmer stated that 
under the new laws and having been served a Section 8 
notice he had to halt all agricultural activities. 
Mugabe reportedly became angry and directed his staff "to 
sort it out".  When Mugabe asked the farmer about tobacco 
preparations, the farmer again replied in the negative, 
saying that bank loans were precluded now that he was 
listed, that his present crop (already reaped) was his 
last due to the acquisition notice, which could lead to 
his imprisonment if he were to put in seed beds.  Mugabe 
reportedly told MacKenzie to go ahead with the wheat 
planting, to which the farmer replied that it was already 
past the planting deadline, and his irrigation pipes had 
been stolen to boot.  Mugabe reportedly again became very 
angry and told his staff to rectify the situation. 
 
4.  (SBU) We have also heard that UN SYG Annan raised the 
food/land issue with Mugabe in NY and was told that the 
GOZ would be returning to implementation of its Abuja 
Agreement commitments on land.  We note that Made's May 
19 statement returned to Abuja language in sharp contrast 
with is public and private language of recent months. 
 
5.  (SBU) Comment: Despite Made's public utterances of 
all the right words, the reality of government's actions 
on the ground, at least from our inquiries and 
observation, remains distant from the Minister's 
rhetoric.  At least 94 percent of commercial farm 
properties have been listed, with foreign status making 
no difference, and the remaining 6 percent are unlisted 
only due to clerical errors, according to a contact of 
ours at the Lands and Agriculture Ministry.  We shall 
watch keenly if foreign-owned properties are delisted and 
desettled, as a number of American-owned properties are 
currently subject to listing, occupation, or both.  End 
Comment. 
UNQUOTE 
 
SULLIVAN