President mourns commercial farmer Swanepoel

ZIMBABWE remembers and mourns Mr Nick Swanepoel for his role as a key and progressive player in the search for a cordial, negotiated settlement to the Zimbabwean land question, President Mnangagwa said yesterday in his condolence message for the commercial farmer who died in South Africa.

The President commended Mr Swanepoel’s level-headedness and the role he played when Zimbabwe corrected the skewed land distribution, which favoured white settlers to the detriment of native Zimbabweans.

The Government will decide on the form of assistance to render to the Swanepoel family once burial details are known.

“I was acutely distressed and deeply saddened to receive yesterday news of the death in South Africa of Mr Nick Swanepoel, a long-time leader of the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU),” said the President .

“A veteran farmer and leader, Zimbabwe remembers and mourns the late Nick Swanepoel for his role as a key and progressive player in the search for an amicable, negotiated settlement to the vexatious and historically-rooted Zimbabwean land question.

“From 2000 when the struggle for the recovery of our land entered a decisive phase, Nick and like-minded progressive white farmers kept their heads, and tirelessly pushed for a non-confrontational and non-political approach to the land question, even calling for the removal of the then right-wing CFU executive, led by Tim Henwood, which they correctly saw as an obstacle to a just resolution of the land question.”

President Mnangagwa said true to his conciliatory, mature and realistic approach, Mr Swanepoel and his group tabled to Government land resettlement proposals as early as in 2001, which called upon white commercial farmers to not only endorse and cede land which Government needed for resettlement, but also to participate in the actual resettlement of landless Zimbabweans through helping new black farmers.