South Africa land seizures: Mark Milbank lost his farm and cattle under Mugabe’s land seizure policy (Image: GETTY / MARK MILBANK)
Mark Milbank had a 5,000-acre farm called Chirume Ranch – 75 miles south east of the Harare in the Weza farming district – where he had lived for the previous 40 years.
Mr Milbank lost everything when Mugabe began seizing 23m acres of land from white-owned farms.
It led to mass rioting, a huge spike in the murders of farmers, famine and economic collapse, with the daily inflation rate averaging 98 percent at its peak in 2008 and cost the crisis-hit country $20bn.
Mr Milbank revealed to Express.co.uk he had 25 cattle stolen or killed but was forced to dispose of some 400 others at “rock bottom prices”, while his son, who lived next door, had 350 cattle stolen.
Mr Milbank, speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk, said the land that was stolen from him was given to 29 “peasant families” who were moved from their existing homes onto his farm.
He said: “I lost my farm, home, business, pension, all the game in my small game park and a number of cattle.
“I still hold the title deeds and am hoping that the new government in Zimbabwe will pay me – and my farming friends and family – some form of compensation so as to get agriculture back on track.
“Mugabe’s fast track land reform programme has totally ruined a once very productive country which now relies on aid from Britain and other western countries to feed its people.
“The land grab was NOT designed to help the ‘starving masses’ but to help Mugabe and his thugs to stay in power.”
British born Mr Milbank has since returned to the UK in 2011 and is the author of book ‘Scrambled Africa’.
Mark Milbank returned to Zimbabwe in 2015 to find everything had been destroyed (Image: Mark Milbank)
In 2015, he returned to what used to be his home in Zimbabwe and met his old foreman, who “begged him to come back”.
Mr Milbank said that everything he had worked for over 40 years had been destroyed by the Mugabe land seizure campaign.
The former farmer added that a local school and shop had been destroyed in the local area that now didn’t even have an efficient electricity system.
Mr Milbank said: “The house and stables had burned down, all the fencing had been removed, any decent tree had been cut down for firewood, the dirt roads were an eroded mess, all the game had been slaughtered and most of the villagers who had been told to move onto my land had gone back to where they came from.
“There was no school, no shop or any other facilities in the whole area. We used to have an efficient telephone and electricity system but with no one to pay for it now, all of that is gone.”
Cyril Ramaphosa had said his ANC party would pass an amendment to the country’s constitution (Image: GETTY)
In July, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa confirmed his African National Congress (ANC) party would pass an amendment to the country’s constitution.
Last month, ANC chairman Gwede Mantashe sparked panic among the farming community when he said that any farmers owning more than 25,000 acres of land would have it taken from them without compensation.
But on Wednesday, the farm expropriation bill was withdrawn but is set to be replaced by a new act giving the South African government more powers.
The ANC said, the bill which has been going through parliament for two years and would have the power to take land away from white farmers to rebalance racial disparities, needed to have further consideration.
Nonceba Mhlauli, a spokeswoman for the ANC’s chief whip, said: “Were the bill to be re-introduced, it would contain a clause or clauses reflecting expropriation of land without compensation if that is the way that South Africans have chosen to go.”
Having gone through the horrific experience himself, Mr Milbank has grave fears over what might happen in South Africa should a similar bill be re-introduced, with “revenge killings” and a policy that could cripple the economy.
There has been a rise in violent attacks against farmers in South Africa and between 2016-17, there were 74 farm murders and 638 attacks, mainly against the white farmers.
Mr Milbank explained that he has close friends Port Alfred in the Eastern Cape. The father of the man was murdered many years ago and the remaining family now live behind locked gates with a 12-foot high security fence surrounding the whole garden, while a guard patrols the area throughout the night.
He warned: “If it is anything like what happened in Zimbabwe, it will have a huge impact on the economy of the country.
“Perhaps not as big as that in Zimbabwe as there is so much mineral wealth in RSA and it is altogether a more sophisticated country with other industries but agriculture still plays a very large part.
“South Africa has many more farmers, both big and small, than Zimbabwe ever had (some 4,000 before the land grab started) and many have already been murdered – some in a sort of ‘revenge’ killing as a payback for the apartheid era.
“Now, with the promise of land being given to them, unemployed thugs will probably up the number of murders considerably which will have a knock on effect in making more farmers leave the land voluntarily and even leave the country altogether just as many, including myself , did from Zimbabwe.
“Any responsible government must realise that this sort of land grab would be a disaster to the economy of the country and would only be done for that government to ingratiate itself with an unemployed, dissatisfied electorate.”