President Robert Mugabe has begun to reverse his “insane” land grab and offer some white farmers the chance to lease back their holdings in Zimbabwe.
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The U-turn is expected to be announced within days. The ruling Zanu-PF party’s politburo has been informed and selected journalists in the state-controlled media have been briefed on how to spin the policy reversal.
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The government is expected to admit in the next few days that it has only used about 50 per cent of the land it seized. In reality, land economists say the figure of idle land is nearer 80 to 90 per cent.

The new policy is understood to have been approved by Mr Mugabe but it is unlikely he will announce it, as the government hopes to play down the U-turn.
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Many will need convincing that the offer is genuine unless it is openly endorsed by Mr Mugabe and, even then, they may still be sceptical about a president who has broken promises in the past. “The government vastly underestimates the damage of its insane policies,” said one of Zimbabwe’s former top cereal producers. “They probably believe that allowing some of us to return will turn the economy around in a single season. We won’t be able to do anything without international finance, and we won’t get that until there is political reform,” he said.

“It’s bloody miserable out there. All our friends have gone, our equipment has been broken, irrigation has been vandalised, our homes have been wrecked, the roads are a mess, our workers have gone so why should we return? I am sure there will be some clots who are so damn miserable in other countries or living in towns that they will go back.

“We should be campaigning for compensation, not going back to help people who wrecked our country.”

By the time Vernon Nicolle lost his farm in Zimbabwe to a High Court judge, all his equipment had been looted and an irrigation system for 4,000 acres lay in ruins.
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His fertile fields were reduced to neglected wastelands. The disclosure that president Robert Mugabe’s regime will give some dispossessed white farmers back their land fills him with suspicion and incredulity.

“I had a gem in Zimbabwe, a real gem, and it’s all been vandalised,” Mr Nicolle said. “I find it very difficult to even consider going back.”
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How could the workforce, the tools and the expensive infrastructure, built up over decades, ever be restored? And who would foot the bill?

Yet more than anything else, many farmers will never trust Mr Mugabe again.

As chairman of a farmers’ association, Mr Nicolle, 62, met him after Zimbabwe achieved independence in 1980.

The new leader promised him a secure future and went out of his way to reassure the country’s white farmers.

“I heard Mugabe tell farmers they had nothing to fear,” said Mr Nicolle. “It was on this promise that we encouraged farmers in our area to stay.”

Mr Nicolle was eventually forced off Gwina farm near Banket in June 2003. Most of his land was handed to Mr Justice Ben Hlatshwayo of the High Court, who has not proved a successful farmer.
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“How demoralising it would be to have to deal with the same thugs who did such unspeakable things,” he said.

“How on earth do you get started again? It’s just unimaginable.”