By Princess Eugene Majuru, Princess of Harare (Mbari Clan)
Zimbabwe stands at a dangerous moral and historical crossroads. The Government of Zimbabwe’s decision to prioritise compensation for former white commercial farmers under the so‑called Global Compensation Deed—while continuing to ignore the unresolved dispossession of indigenous communities such as the Mbari royal clan of Harare—is not reconciliation. It is revisionism. It is the sanitising of colonial theft at the expense of historical truth, African lives, and African sovereignty.
This article is not written from bitterness, but from duty—to ancestors who bled for the land, to descendants who inherit unresolved injustice, and to history itself, which cannot be bribed into silence.
1. The Original Crime: Colonial Land Theft Was Never Lawful
White settler occupation of land in Zimbabwe did not arise from lawful purchase, free consent, or equitable treaties. It arose from conquest, violence, and racially discriminatory laws imposed by a colonial regime beginning in 1890.
Key instruments of dispossession included:
The British South Africa Company (BSAC) Charter (1889) – a commercial charter masquerading as sovereignty, granting Cecil John Rhodes powers over land he did not own.
The Land Apportionment Act (1930) – which reserved the most fertile land for a white minority and forced Africans into marginal “native reserves.”
The Land Tenure Act (1969) – which entrenched racial segregation in land ownership.
Under international law, land acquired through conquest, coercion, or racial domination is illegitimate. There is no moral or legal principle under which beneficiaries of such theft are entitled to compensation from the victims of that theft.
The Mbari royal family of Harare did not lose land through market transactions. We lost land through colonial violence.
2. The Lancaster House Agreement: A Temporary Compromise, Not Eternal Blackmail
Much is made of the Lancaster House Agreement (1979). Let us be precise.
Yes, it included a “willing buyer, willing seller” clause for ten years. It also made clear that Britain had a role in funding land reform. What it did not do was:
Permanently freeze Zimbabwe’s sovereignty over land
Grant eternal property rights to colonial beneficiaries
Extinguish indigenous land claims predating colonisation
After 1990, Zimbabwe was legally entitled to amend its Constitution and pursue compulsory land acquisition in pursuit of social justice—an action recognised in international law under the doctrine of restorative justice.
To now resurrect Lancaster House as a weapon against African justice—while Britain simultaneously disclaims responsibility—is historical bad faith.
3. International Law Does NOT Require Compensation for Illegitimate Ownership
International law draws a clear distinction between:
Lawful expropriation of legitimate property, and
Restitution following historical injustice
Key principles include:
UN General Assembly Resolution 1803 (Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources)
UN Basic Principles on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation (2005)
UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)
These affirm that:
Victims of historical dispossession are entitled to restitution and compensation.
Not the beneficiaries of that dispossession.
White commercial farmers were not an indigenous people. They were not dispossessed minorities. They were colonial beneficiaries.
If compensation is discussed at all, logic and justice dictate that it must flow from coloniser to colonised, not the reverse.
4. The Moral Absurdity: Paying Those Who Profited, While Ignoring Those Who Lost Everything
From 1890 to 2000, white settlers:
Farmed stolen land for over a century
Accumulated wealth, infrastructure, and intergenerational advantage
Benefited from racially exclusive state subsidies, security, and markets
Meanwhile, indigenous communities like the Mbari:
Were expelled from sacred and productive land
Were reduced to labourers on their own soil
Lost royal sites, graves, shrines, and governance systems
Many died resisting this theft. Others lived and died landless.
Who, then, owes whom?
To argue that Zimbabwe must now compensate those who already extracted a century of benefit—while the original owners remain uncompensated—is an ethical inversion so extreme it borders on obscenity.
5. The Mbari Question: The Inconvenient Truth Being Silenced
The Mbari royal family of Harare predates the colonial state. Our land rights are ancestral, customary, spiritual, and historical.
Neither Britain nor the Zimbabwean state has ever:
Restituted Mbari land
Paid compensation
Issued a formal apology
Recognised Mbari royal dispossession in law
Yet we are told to accept that funds exist to compensate colonial beneficiaries—but not indigenous royalty.
This is not reconciliation. It is colonial hierarchy repackaged.
6. Zimbabwe Cannot Buy International Approval with African Blood
This compensation agenda is not about justice. It is about:
Appeasing Western governments
Seeking re‑engagement on unequal terms
Trading historical truth for investor sentiment
But no nation has ever secured dignity by rewarding injustice.
Zimbabwe does not need to launder colonial crimes to be accepted globally. It needs to complete decolonisation honestly.
7. What Should Happen Instead
Suspend all compensation payments to former white farmers.
Audit historical benefits accrued from stolen land since 1890.
Recognise and compensate indigenous communities, beginning with royal clans such as the Mbari.
Demand British accountability for colonial land theft under international restorative justice frameworks.
Establish a Truth, Land, and Restitution Commission grounded in African customary law and international human rights law.
Our Ancestors Are Watching
Land is not a commodity in African cosmology. It is identity, memory, sovereignty, and spirit.
You cannot compensate a thief and call it peace. You cannot silence the dispossessed and call it progress.
My ancestors—and the ancestors of all Zimbabweans who died for this land—will not be placated by cheques written to those who benefited from their suffering. History will record who stood for truth, and who tried to bury it under agreements and dollar figures.
This move must be stopped. Zimbabwe must choose justice over convenience.
Princess Eugene Majuru Princess of Harare, Mbari Clan
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