Zimbabwe plans to compensate white farmers for land seized for
redistribution to blacks and has begun evaluating the properties,
Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa said on Friday.President Robert Mugabe's controversial and sometimes violent land reforms, which began in 2000, have been blamed for plunging the country into an economic crisis.
Around 4 000 white farmers were driven off their land and have struggled for years to obtain any payment for their loss.
The move towards compensation comes as the government shows signs that it wants a rapprochement with western donors and the International Monetary Fund to help heal the economy.
"It [compensation] is under our constitution, this is an obligation under our constitution as far as I am concerned," Chinamasa told AFP.
Chinamasa said the government had started working out the value of the farms to determine the amount of compensation to be paid, but he refused to be drawn into how the cash-strapped government would finance the exercise.
"I want to settle any issues or disputes arising from our resolution of our land question," Chinamasa said. "It is not good for agricultural development that we should make and perpetuate dispute or discontent around the land question." The minister did not say when the dispossessed farmers could expect to be paid.
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