HARARE – Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa has defended his country’s controversial land reform programme, arguing that the seizure of land from white commercial farmers was an assertion of national sovereignty that triggered decades of Western sanctions but ultimately reinforced Zimbabwe’s independence.
Speaking during a panel discussion with US media personality Tucker Carlson at the World Governments Summit in Dubai, Mnangagwa said international punitive measures — particularly from Britain and its allies — were imposed after Zimbabwe reclaimed land taken during the colonial era.
“Our economy has faced challenges, as you are aware,” Mnangagwa said. “Zimbabwe has been under sanctions for decades as a result of us claiming our lands from the British and making ourselves independent.”
“We seized the land and gave it to our people, so sanctions were imposed on us,” he added. “But in spite of all those constraints, we have developed, and we are happy that we feel very independent.”
The exchange turned to the political and moral lessons of the land seizures, which accelerated in the early 2000s under former president Robert Mugabe through the Fast-Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP). Carlson questioned whether targeting landowners who were white Zimbabweans amounted to discrimination based on race.
“I wonder if there is a lesson about targeting people on the basis of their skin,” Carlson said, noting that some of those affected were born in Zimbabwe and lost land because of their race.
Zimbabwe President, Emerson Mnagangwa BLOWS OFF an American journalist when he tried implying that ceasing land from white people and giving it to Zimbabweans was racist.
"Land did not belong to a race. It belonged to Zimbabweans. So when the colonialists took land from us time… pic.twitter.com/3fyQAcQxMX
— THEE ALFA HOUSE (@thee_alfa_house) February 5, 2026
Mnangagwa rejected that framing, insisting the land question was rooted in historical dispossession rather than racial animus.
“Land did not belong to the settlers; it belonged to Zimbabweans,” he said. “When the colonialists took land from us, the time came when we asserted ourselves to take the land back.”
He added that white farmers who accepted equal status with black Zimbabweans were able to remain, while those who regarded themselves as superior chose to leave. “Those who wanted to have land on the same basis as the African people of Zimbabwe remained,” he said. “But those who felt they were superior left.”
The land reform programme remains one of the most contentious chapters in Zimbabwe’s post-independence history. Beginning in the early 2000s, state-backed groups forcibly took over thousands of commercial farms, leading to a sharp decline in agricultural output and contributing to a prolonged economic crisis. An estimated 4,000 commercial farms were affected, with about 1,300 white farmers directly displaced.
Following Mugabe’s removal from office in 2017, Mnangagwa’s administration sought to re-engage with Western governments and international financial institutions, partly by addressing outstanding land compensation claims. In 2020, Zimbabwe agreed to pay US$3.5 billion over ten years to compensate around 4,000 former white commercial farmers for improvements made on the land.
However, the government has struggled to meet payment deadlines, and compensation remains a major obstacle to debt clearance and renewed access to international finance.
Last month, a US-based lobbying group with close ties to former president Donald Trump said it was working to persuade Washington to support Zimbabwe’s debt resolution efforts and the creation of financial mechanisms that could help fund compensation payments.
Despite these efforts, Mnangagwa has continued to frame land reform as a non-negotiable outcome of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle, signalling that while the government may pursue economic re-engagement, it will not retreat from the political foundations of its land policy.
