Land reform in Zimbabwe officially began in 1979 with the signing of the Lancaster House Agreement, an effort to more equitably distribute land between the historically disenfranchised blacks and the minority-whites who ruled Zimbabwe from 1890 to 1979. The government's land distribution is perhaps the most crucial and most bitterly contested political issue surrounding Zimbabwe. It can be divided into two periods: from 1979 to 2000, where a principle of willing buyer, willing seller was applied with economic help from Great Britain and secondly, beginning in 2000, the fast-track land reform program. Mugabe's targets have included black political opponents as well as white farmers.
Read more about Land Reform In Zimbabwe: Background, Lancaster House Agreement, 1980s, Economic Consequences
Famous quotes containing the words land and/or reform:
“Those who till their land will have plenty of food, but those who follow worthless pursuits have no sense.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Proverbs 12:11.
“Both of us felt more anxiety about the South—about the colored people especially—than about anything else sinister in the result. My hope of a sound currency will somehow be realized; civil service reform will be delayed; but the great injury is in the South. There the Amendments will be nullified, disorder will continue, prosperity to both whites and colored people will be pushed off for years.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)