A report by Bloomberg says a group of former white farmers in Zimbabwe have turned to US President Donald Trump’s administration to help win billions of dollars in compensation for land acquired during the land reform.
This comes as at time the Trump administration has been pushing a discredited narrative that white farmers in South Africa are facing a genocide.
The Zimbabwean farmers will be represented by Mercury Public Affairs, a US lobbying firm with ties to Trump.
The firm has agreed to make the farmers’ case to American politicians and won’t charge them, according to a Foreign Agents Registration Act filing.
Bryan Lanza, a partner at Mercury who is involved in the project according to a letter included in the filing, previously served as a senior campaign adviser to Trump and communications director on the president’s first transition team. White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles is a former Mercury co-chair.
Mercury previously represented the Zimbabwe government between 2019 and 2021, a contract in which Zimbabwe paid a monthly retainer of US$90,000 to lobby against sanctions in Washington. The US imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe in 2001, something the Zimbabweans believe was in response to the land reform.
Zimbabwe undertook what it referred to as a fast-track land reform programme beginning around 2000, which saw veterans of the country’s war of liberation lead forced takeovers of white-owned farmland to address “colonial imbalances” in land ownership. Bloomberg/additional commentary by DzokaAfrika
