I. SUMMARY
The “fast track” land resettlement program implemented by the government of Zimbabwe over the last
two years has led to serious human rights violations. The program’s implementation also raises serious doubts as
to the extent to which it has benefited the landless poor. The stated aim of the fast track program is to take land
from rich white commercial farmers for redistribution to poor and middle-income landless black Zimbabweans.
Under the program, however, ruling party militias, often led by veterans of Zimbabwe’s liberation war, have
carried out serious acts of violence against farm owners, farm workers, and, using occupied farms as bases for
attacks, against residents of surrounding areas. The police have done little to halt such violence, and in some
cases are directly implicated in the abuses. The process of allocating plots to those who want land has frequently
discriminated against those who are believed to support opposition parties, and in some cases those supervising
the process have required applicants to demonstrate support for the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National
Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF). Zimbabwe’s several hundred thousand farm workers have been largely
excluded from the program, and many have lost their jobs, driven from the farms where they work by violence or
laid off because of a collapse in commercial agricultural production. Even those people allocated plots on former
commercial farms appear in many cases to have little security of tenure on the land, leaving them vulnerable to
future partisan political processes or eviction on political grounds, and further impoverishment.
The need for land reform in Zimbabwe is generally acknowledged, even by representatives of the
commercial farming sector. Colonial policies of expropriation gave a few thousand white farmers ownership of
huge tracts of arable land. About 4,500 large-scale commercial farmers still held 28 percent of the total land at the
time the fast track program was instituted; meanwhile, more than one million black families eke out an existence
in overcrowded, arid “communal areas,” the land allocated to Africans by the colonial regime. Farm workers,
many of whom are of foreign descent, have little or no access to land on their own account, and are also
vulnerable to arbitrary eviction from their tied accommodation. Many poor and middle -income black people in
urban areas, squeezed by rocketing food and transport price hikes and growing unemployment since the mid1990s, see land as an alternative source of income and food security. Many land restitution claims relating to
forced removals during the era of the white government have also not been addressed. These factors create a
significant land hunger in Zimbabwe.
This report considers the human rights implications of the so-called fast track process of land redistribution
in Zimbabwe, under which the government has revised the constitution and amended legislation in order to allow
it to acquire commercial farms compulsorily and without compensation, and the land occupations that have
accompanied it since early 2000. We focus on the violence that has accompanied the land occupations of the last
two years, on the discrimination on political grounds that has accompanied the allocation of new plots, and on
adverse effects that the fast track land reform process has had for one of the constituencies which was supposed to
benefit: the rural poor.
As has been widely reported, war veterans and associated Zanu-PF militia occupying commercial farms have
intimidated, assaulted, and in at least seven cases killed white farm owners in the course of occupying commercial
farms. A much larger number of victims have come from among farm workers on commercial farms; several tens
of farm workers have been killed. In addition, Human Rights Watch collected numerous testimonies indicating
that commercial farms are being used as bases for war veterans and Zanu-PF militia to intimidate alleged
opposition supporters in neighboring communal areas. Our findings confirmed the reports of Zimbabwean and
other international human rights organizations that the police have at best failed to take action against the alleged
perpetrators of violent crimes, and in some cases have actively assisted illegal actions. The army, too, has played
a role in organizing and facilitating the occupations, without providing any check on the violence.
The desire for land is evident from numerous testimonies, including from people who support opposition
parties which have officially opposed the current process. In particular, those who work the land on the
commercial farms often have no land of their own or alternative livelihoods. Yet, according to many witnesses
interviewed by Human Rights Watch the process of land distribution itself raises serious concerns. The first
Human Rights Watch
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March 2002, Vol. 14, No. 1 (A)