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The farm on their land - Should Zimbabwe claim reparation from the British Crown

“To all of you I have a question,” said Sekuru Zenda, who had been quiet for some time. We all looked in his direction to hear what he had to ask. As is the habit of the elders in the Shona tradition, we had to be patient while he calmly made his case before the question was posed and when he did, he had placed a daunting assignment before us.

When Sekuru Zenda was certain that we were all paying attention he then said, “I have heard the history of this country being elaborated with eloquence. Today I have leant in detail the whole funding mechanisms that were put in place for the land reform in this country by the British Crown. First let me admit that for the first time I have seen in writing the letter in which the Queen of the British Empire refused to continue paying for the land reform. Her subject wrote in part, ‘I should make it clear that we do not accept that Britain has a special responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe. We are a new government from diverse backgrounds without links to former colonial interests’. That last statement is where my question rests.

“Correct me if I am wrong,” continued Sekuru Zenda. “In all the history you narrated, I did not hear anywhere where you mentioned that when the British took our land they paid for it. I have heard the British Crown call the repossession of our land, land invasions, and they claim that they are concerned because it was a chaotic land resettlement and they use other demeaning descriptions to describe our fight to reclaim our land. The truth is land invasion took place when the colonialists the British Crown sent to our country, violently dispossessed us of our land. There was no willing seller. There was no buyer. There was a thief who dispossessed the people of this country of their land with impunity.

“The law in this village and I believe throughout the whole country and even in other countries, says that any stolen property, property obtained through armed robbery remains the property of the person who was dispossessed, no matter how long the thief kept the property in his possession. The day that the stolen property is recovered, the thief cannot cry foul when the rightful owner repossesses his/her property, even if the owner uses violent means to recover that property. It is not for the thief or robber to define the method or manner in which repossession of a stolen property must be effected. A dispossessed thief cannot seek compensation for having improved the stolen property.

“Our land was stolen. Taxation was introduced to create a pool of labourers to serve on white farms. Our labour was used to improve the land. We were prohibited to own more than five cows. It was a criminal offence of which the colonial state forcibly took over the rest of our herds so that each one of us owned only five cows. We fought the thieves, the illegal settlers, defeated them, and repossessed our land. The matter should have ended there. But we paid compensation. Why did we have to pay them to get our land back?

“Also, the subject of the Queen of the British Empire wrote that they were ‘a new government from diverse backgrounds without links to former colonial interests’. To me she was denying any responsibilities and any historical linkages to the colonial crimes of plunder and looting that happened in the colonies, this country included. This tells me that somehow when it came to Zimbabwe, history became irrelevant for the British Crown. All that the world already knows about British involvement in Zimbabwe did not happen according to that letter.

“Fundamentally, that letter is claiming that all the history of this country that Nyahuye so ably narrated did not involve the British Crown. That letter is saying Cecil John Rhodes did not dispatch the Pioneer Column to Mashonaland. It is saying, whites had not established control there and Rhodes did not appoint Dr Leander Starr Jameson as ‘Administrator’ there. My interpretation of that letter is that the British Crown does not recognize that even the 1893, white settlers invasion of Matabeleland, the defeat of the Ndebele people and king Lobengula and the subsequent massive expropriation of land and cattle by the white settlers in that part of Zimbabwe had nothing to do with the British Crown.

“According to that letter, Mashonaland and Matabeleland never became a colony named Rhodesia. Neither did Britain terminate the rule of the BSAC in 1923 to annex Southern Rhodesia as its colony, establishing a locally-elected white government. The letter is saying the British Crown was not involved in the creation in 1953 of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

“That is political mischief to say the least, but most relevantly, that letter deliberately did not mention one most important thing. The British Crown did not tell us when the new government ‘without links to former colonial interests’ will return all the wealth that was accumulated from the colony of Zimbabwe, now that they don’t want any links to colonial interests.

“They cannot claim to have nothing to do with colonialism and at the same time continue to keep and enjoy the fruits of that very system they purport to have nothing to do with. Can they? That government of the British Crown ‘without links to former colonial interests’ should realize that it stands for the civilization which occupied, which colonized, which incarcerated, which killed and it has much to atone for. The British Crown has the wealth it accumulated for more than a century from this country that it must return to us.

“The British Crown using an excuse that they were a new government was tantamount to rubbishing the entire land reallocation programme. It indicated a moral bankruptcy on the part of the British Monarch to try and wriggle out of its commitments because of a change of government. What I am asking is when are we going to claim reparations from the Queen of the British Empire for the crimes committed by colonialism? That is my question and if you can give me a detailed and satisfactory answer, I would be very grateful.

“They stole our land and we compensated them when we took it back. That alone failed to take into context the history of the land in Zimbabwe. In all fairness I strongly believe in return we cannot allow colonialism to plunder and loot our country and then we do not demand reparations. If they had the right to receive compensation for losing a stolen property, surely we more than have the right to receive reparations for the plunder and the looting of colonialism, not to mention the impoverishment caused to the people of this country,” declared Sekuru Zenda and then waited to get a response from anyone, if not from all of us and that response had to be a detailed one to his satisfaction for that matter.

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