Zimbabwe says it is returning several foreign-owned farms seized during the country’s violent land reform programme more than 25 years ago and will pay $146 million in compensation. The government says the move affects 67 properties linked to owners from Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the former Yugoslavia.

Agriculture Minister Anxious Masuka told lawmakers that the handover is part of a broader effort to deal with land claims that have remained unresolved for years. Treasury data shows the $146 million compensation package is intended to settle claims linked to the affected foreign owners.

Masuka also said Zimbabwe is returning 840 affected farms owned by Black farmers and about 400 owned by White farmers. That makes the announcement much broader than a limited payout to foreign claimants.

Land ownership remains one of Zimbabwe’s deepest wounds

The issue goes back to Zimbabwe’s colonial history. Under British rule, much of the country’s most fertile farmland was allocated to white settlers. By independence in 1980, about 4,000 white commercial farmers owned nearly half of Zimbabwe’s productive farmland.

The post-independence government pledged to address those imbalances by acquiring white-owned land for redistribution. Britain initially agreed to help fund that process, but progress was slow and British support later fell away in the late 1990s.

In 2000, then-president Robert Mugabe backed the invasion of white-owned farms by Black subsistence farmers and youths, arguing that the seizures were necessary to correct colonial injustice. The consequences were brutal. Several white farmers and hundreds of their workers were killed, about 4,000 farmers were forced off their land, and Zimbabwe’s international standing took a heavy knock.

Compensation is also about rebuilding confidence

The seizures triggered international sanctions and became one of the defining issues in Zimbabwe’s economic collapse. In 2020, the government agreed to pay white farmers $3.5 billion in compensation as part of efforts to regain access to global capital markets.

But that process has been difficult. Zimbabwe later changed the structure of the deal to include dollar bonds as part of the payout, and some farmers rejected the revised offer. The new $146 million compensation package now signals another attempt to show movement on unresolved property claims.

Symbolic step, but bigger questions remain

The latest announcement is significant because it suggests Zimbabwe is trying to repair trust after decades of political and economic damage linked to land seizures. But it also reopens a difficult question: whether compensation and partial reversals can truly settle one of the most divisive chapters in the country’s modern history.

For now, the government’s message is that restitution is under way. Whether that translates into real closure, renewed investor confidence and lasting stability is another matter.