Zimbabwe has offered to give back land to former white farmers whose properties were seized during the controversial land reforms two decades ago.
A month ago the government signed a US$3.5 billion compensation agreement with the white farmers for the land lost 20 years ago to sometimes violent land grabs.
On Monday the government said Zimbabwean or foreign citizens who lost their farms can apply “for the restoration of title to the piece of agricultural land that was compulsorily acquired from them for resettlement”.
The offer was announced in a statement issued jointly by Finance minister Mthuli Ncube and his counterpart in the lands ministry, Anxious Masuka.
To allow the former owners “to regain possession” of land, the ministers said, the government will revoke offers made to black farmers currently occupying the farms and “offer them alternative land elsewhere”.
Zimbabwe launched land reforms in 2000 seizing land from white commercial farmers in what Mugabe said was a reversal of historical land ownership imbalances that favored the minority .
