White People in Zimbabwe - Recent Developments

Recent Developments

White emigration – particularly from within the farming community – picked up speed again after 2000. There is a link between the recent economic decline in Zimbabwe and white emigration. There has been an enormous black emigration in the same period. By 2008, some estimates were that the white population of Zimbabwe could have fallen to less than 30,000 or even less than 20,000. However, these last figures may be misleading since there is a large community of white Zimbabweans who work abroad on a contract basis or have moved their businesses abroad – while retaining a home in the country. One view is that the white population of Zimbabwe has been surprisingly resilient, and any improvement in the economic and political climate would bring many expatriates home again.

The Independence constitution contained a provision requiring the Zimbabwean government to honour pension obligations due former servants of the Rhodesian state. This obligation included payment in foreign currency to pensioners living outside Zimbabwe (almost all white). Pension payments were made until the 1990s, but they then became erratic and stopped altogether in 2003.

White communities in African countries suffered a variety of fates in the post-colonial period. In many countries (e.g. Kenya, Namibia and Botswana) the white communities survived and actually grew in number. In two particular cases, Algeria and Zimbabwe, the previously large European communities have shrunk. In both these last cases, the white communities had put up a fight against decolonisation and many white people found it difficult to adjust to the realities of the world they found themselves in after independence. Many neutral observers feel that the failure of some newly independent African countries and their white minorities to come to terms with one another was to the mutual disadvantage of both parties. For example, expatriate white farmers and hoteliers from Zimbabwe have done much to revive agriculture and develop tourism in neighbouring Zambia. Although much depleted in numbers, white Zimbabweans continue to play a leading role in the country's economic and political life.

The white community has also recently been the subject of a campaign by the Zimbabwean State media. Several state newspapers have referred to white Zimbabweans as "Britain's Children" and "settlers and colonialists".

In 2006 several residents (including British aristocrats) of the predominantly wealthy white Harare suburb of Borrowdale were evicted from their homes because of their proximity to Mugabe's new home in the suburb. In 2007 the exclusive suburb hit the headlines again when news emerged that 100 mainly white youths were arrested during a raid in the suburb's Glow Nightclub, they were transported in two police buses and detained in the downtown central police station. According to eye witnesses, several of the youths were attacked by the Zimbabwean police. In 2008, The Guardian reported on the increasingly hostile situation that the urban white community were facing in Zimbabwe.

In March 2008, Zimbabweans took part in the Parliamentary and Presidential elections. High profile white Zimbabwean candidates in these elections included David Coltart for the Senate and Trudy Stevenson, Eddie Cross, and Ian Kay for the House of Assembly – all of these running for one of the Movement for Democratic Change factions (MDC-T) or (MDC-M). Coltart, Cross, and Kay were all elected, while Stevenson failed to take the Mount Pleasant seat in Harare for the Mutumbara faction of the MDC.

The MDC won both the Parliamentary and Presidential elections. In a normal political system, ZANU-PF would go into opposition and a new MDC government would come into office. Since 1980 Zimbabwe has existed in a post-revolutionary state run by a liberation movement. The process of transformation was therefore slow and painful. On 16 September 2008 the formation of a new "unity" government was agreed with MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai as Prime Minister. Senator Roy Bennett was nominated to be Minister of Lands, Agriculture, and Resettlement while Eddie Cross was nominated to be Minister of International Trade.

In February 2009, The Times reported on the struggles the white community faces today. They cited the struggle to afford food and the astronomical price of private healthcare. Reporting that most whites resident in Zimbabwe were financially dependent on relatives abroad.

In the same month, the British government confirmed that it would assist elderly British citizens living in the country to resettle in the United Kingdom. The repatriation plan will focus on Britons over seventy and younger Britons with medical or other problems may also be eligible.

In February 2010, the international media reported that new government regulations stipulated that all white business owners must sign over a 51% majority share of their business to black Zimbabweans. A penalty for those that do not comply could result in imprisonment. Most recently, the law has been abandoned pending further discussion.

In March 2010, a group of dispossessed white farmers were handed the ownership documents of a valuable property in Cape Town owned by the Zimbabwean government. A South African court had earlier ruled that land grabs in Zimbabwe were unlawful and that property owned by the Zimbabwean government (and not protected by diplomatic immunity) could be seized as compensation for victims of the land grabs. It is anticipated that other assets such as Air Zimbabwe jets in South Africa could be seized.

The charity Zane ("Zimbabwe, a National Emergency") was established in 2002. The charity helps to facilitate the repatriation of cash-strapped British passport-holders resident in Zimbabwe. As of 2010, it continues to support 1,800 white Zimbabweans, while also providing support to wider Zimbabwean society.