The Lancaster House Problem

Did Black People really expect to be treated fairly in England...? Why Yes, they actually did.

The Lancaster House Agreement (1979) brought an end to the Second Chimurenga, a conflict that had lasted over a decade between the White minority government and the various Black nationalist groups.

The agreement laid out the terms for an independent Zimbabwe.

Land reform was a critical term, and a contentious issue. Land ownership was a huge issue as a small White minority (approx. 6600) owned most of Zimbabwe’s arable land from

• Land Grants granted by the British South Africa Company in exchange for assisting to take over the country from the Black majority,
• Colonial Policies, restricting access to land for the Black population,
• Repression,
• Segregation and
• Violence, displacing Black landowners and Low-Cost Land, where White Settlers were able to buy prime farmland from the state at low cost.

Although the Lancaster House agreement recognized the need for land redistribution it stipulated a willing buyer, willing seller approach for the first decade of independence.

This meant land redistribution would only happen if White landowners were willing to sell their stolen land back to the government at market value with Colonial Power Britain funding the land programmes.

This clause was meant to protect property rights and reassure the White Zimbabweans, but it hindered immediate land reform frustrating many Black Zimbabweans who had hoped for swift redistribution.

The agreement also included constitutional protections for the White minority, guaranteeing parliamentary seats for the White minority for the first 7 years and safeguarding property rights.

The British were protective of the White Farming interests in Zimbabwe, so the agreement tended to be biased to the interests of the White Farmers.

By 1980 6600 White farmers occupied 15.5 million hectares of the best land in Zimbabwe, while 7 million Black People were crowded onto some of the most infertile and dry areas.

The willing buyer willing seller approach ultimately proved insufficient to address inequality and this led to violent land seizures in the late 1997 under the Mugabe Administration, this had a significant impact on the Zimbabwean economy and agriculture.

By 1997 commercial farming land had decreased by 3.6 million hectares with most having gone to government resettlement. By 1997 the number of White commercial farmers had decreased to 4500 they still held over 30% of the most productive land under freehold.

This resulted in the Fast Track Land Reform Programme or the Third Chimurenga of 2000 which was an expression of the growing demand for land redistribution by a variety of existing and potential small- and large-scale indigenous land users.