By Agencies
ZAPU President , Sibangilizwe Nkomo, said the move to return the farms to former white farmers was “outrageous and provoking”.
Speaking in parliament on 6 May, Minister of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Water Resources Development Anxious Masuka said the farms previously belonged to nationals from Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands.
However, Nkomo expressed disappointment over the developments arguing that the government seized Zapu and Zipra farms in 1982 and they were returned.
“They are now rushing to return land to foreigners. We are crying and complaining that they must return our farms which we bought, but they refuse,” Nkomo said.
In 1982, the government seized farms and companies belonging to PF Zapu under the Unlawful Organisation Act, after accusing its late leader Joshua Nkomo of planning to overthrow then Prime Minister the late Robert Mugabe following the alleged discovery of arms caches.
Those properties were never returned.
In 2019, Mnangagwa promised to return Zipra properties, but little has been done.
In May 2025, a group of Zipra veterans, widows and children of deceased ex-combatants set up camp in Chinhoyi, demanding the return of Nitram Holdings properties allegedly taken during the Gukurahundi era.
Zipra war veteran and Bulawayo Zapu secretary Vivian Siziba, said the government was wrong to authorise farm invasions in the first place. “Those farms were acquired lawfully after independence with the approval of the Zimbabwe government. It was the government’s naivety and folly to authorise the occupation of those farms without due consideration of Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements,” Siziba said
