THIS PUBLICATION PRESENTS the findings and conclusions of a four-person all-African fact-finding mission team of land and housing rights specialists, who visited Zimbabwe in September 2000 on behalf of COHRE to investigate the current land crisis. The mission was initiated in response to a large number of requests received by COHRE from its international network of organizations working on property, land and housing rights.

COHRE is an international human rights NGO that undertakes a wide variety of activities to support the full realization of housing rights for all. COHRE views forced evictions – as does the United Nations – as a gross violation of human rights, and campaigns against them. The COHRE–Africa programme is based in Lagos, Nigeria. Zimbabwe has a classification of 56.8 on the Gini inequality index, placing it sixth in the world. This translates into the richest 20 per cent of Zimbabweans receiving 60 per cent of the income. This inequality is sharply reflected in land distribution, with a minority of the population owning and controlling a large proportion of the best quality land. A formidable land reform task faced the new government when it took power in 1980. The overwhelming majority of Zimbabweans were crowded into the communal areas, comprising 41 per cent of the land, while a few thousand white commercial farmers owned 39 per cent of the land. This report, from the frontline of the Zimbabwean land struggle, attempts to analyze the chaotic, conflict-ridden, fluid situation surrounding the high-profile land acquisition and reform issue in Zimbabwe. It begins with some historical background to the issue, followed by an analysis of the progress made by the current land reform and resettlement programme in terms of increasing land distribution, although it remains discriminatory towards women. This is accompanied by a summary of the key sociopolitical events and agreements affecting the land acquisition process between 1980 and 1999, leading up to the crisis in 2000, provoked by state-sponsored forcible occupation of commercial farms. The report attempts to quantify the high stakes of the land debate in an economy where land is the most invaluable natural resource, while highlighting the relevant sections of the Zimbabwean constitution that guarantee the right to property for all its citizens. It concludes by recognizing that there has been a complete breakdown in the rule of law in the country, resulting in the erosion of basic human rights, and it makes a series of recommendations aimed at the government of Zimbabwe as well as at the international community, with a view to ensuring that the housing, land and property rights of all Zimbabweans are respected and protected.

The report also contains a series of useful annexes, including lists of commercial farm allocations in Zimbabwe up to 1999, details of farm invasions up to May 2000 and relevant sections of the Zimbabwean constitution (section 16), both prior and subsequent to the controversial 2000 amendments.