Harare — White Zimbabwean commercial farmers who were driven off their land during President Robert Mugabe’s controversial land seizures are disputing claims by the finance minister that they got $134m in compensation last year. Zimbabwe grabbed world headlines in 2000 when supporters of the now 93-year-old Mugabe invaded white-owned farms and evicted their owners, often violently. Mugabe defended the seizures as necessary to redress colonial exploitation. Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa told parliament on Thursday that his government had paid $134m in unbudgeted money in compensation last year, but did not give details and his official statement did not include the figure. Ben Gilpin, acting director at Commercial Farmers Union of Zimbabwe (CFUZ), a group with less than 200 members, down from 4,500 at the start of the land seizures, said on Thursday that he was not aware of anybody who had been compensated. "We haven’t seen or heard of those payments from people we have been in ...
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