HARARE: Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Saturday said the country will not return land seized from former white commercial farmers almost two decades ago.
“It will never happen,” Mnangagwa said in a speech to his ZANU-PF party supporters in central Zimbabwe, broadcast on television.
His statement comes two months after white farmer Robert Smart got his land back after being evicted in June by ex-president Robert Mugabe’s government.
Zimbabwe embarked on a violent land reform program in 2000, taking over white-owned farms to resettle landless blacks.
Thousands of white farmers were forced off their land by mobs or evicted, with Mugabe saying the reforms would help black people marginalized under British colonial rule.
Critics blame the land redistribution for the collapse in agricultural production that saw the former regional breadbasket become a perennial food importer.
The government has indicated it will issue 99-year bankable leases to beneficiaries of land reform but Mnangagwa on Saturday said land owners must be more productive.
“Our land must be productive. We must mechanize and modernize our agriculture,” he said, adding that the land reforms were “irreversible.”
Mnangagwa, who came to power after a military intervention ended Mugabe’s decades-old rule last year, said new elections would be held in July.
“We want a peaceful election. We want a united people. There is no reason for ZANU-PF to be violent. There is no reason for any political party to be violent.”
The former deputy president said his government’s top priority was to revive the ailing economy.
“Our economy is struggling, unemployment is high, our youth lack opportunities, too many people are unable to afford essential goods for their families and our infrastructure is stuck in the past,” he said.
Zimbabwe won’t return land to white farmers
Zimbabwe won’t return land to white farmers
Chile wildfires leave 19 dead amid extreme heat as scores evacuated
- Fast-moving wildfires being worsened by intense heat, winds
- Firefighters battling 23 active blazes spreading toward cities
CONCEPCION, Chile: Wildfires in Chile have left at least 19 people dead, authorities said on Monday, as the government carried out mass evacuations and fought nearly two dozen blazes exacerbated by intense heat and high winds.
While weather conditions overnight helped control some fires, the largest were still active, with adverse conditions expected throughout the day, security minister, Luis Cordero, said at a news briefing on Monday.
“The projection we have today is of high temperatures,” Cordero said, and the main worry was that new fires would be triggered throughout the region.
Parts of central and southern Chile were under extreme heat warnings with temperatures expected to reach up to 37 Celsius (99 Fahrenheit).
STATE OF EMERGENCY DECLARED IN NUBLE, BIO BIO
As of late Sunday, Chile’s CONAF forestry agency said firefighters were combating 23 fires across the country, the largest of which were in regions of Ñuble and Bío Bío, where President Gabriel Boric declared a state of catastrophe.
Over 20,000 hectares (77 square miles) have been razed so far, an area about the size of Seattle, with the largest fire surpassing 14,000 hectares on the outskirts of the coastal city Concepcion.
The fast-moving blaze tore through the towns of Penco and Lirquen over the weekend, destroying hundreds of homes and killing several people, with authorities still assessing the damage.
HEAT, BLAZES ALSO IMPACT ARGENTINA
Authorities are currently battling the fire as it threatened Manzano prison on the edge of Concepcion and the town of Tome to the north.
Both Chile and Argentina rang in the new year with heat waves which have continued into January. Earlier this month, wildfires broke out in Argentina’s Patagonia, burning around 15,000 hectares.
