Contrary to popular belief, the white commercial farmers do not own 70% of the fertile land in Zimbabwe. 900 farms comprising roughly 2 million hectares were acquired by the government for redistribution and they were indeed distributed -- to the cronies and relatives of President Mugabe, in some cases in such ridiculous portions that one minister owns 17 farms.
The farms of mixed and black people have also been invaded in a pattern that suggests the invasions are political rather than racial. eg. the farm workers that are beaten and harassed are those that support the opposition, the white farmers that were killed were prominent supporters of the main opposition party as were all the black people killed so far.
The invasions seal off a large part of the country from opposition campaigners and allow the Zanu PF sponsored "war veterans" to continue their intimidation campaign untouched by the law.
Except for a very few exceptions, these so-called war veterans average 18 years of age, and unless there's a war that happened a couple of years ago of which the rest of Zimbabwe has never heard. . .
The "war veterans" are transported by government vehicles to each new farm, armed and paid by the government.
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