ABSTRACT
The question of land has both a particular historic significance and an enduring contemporary political importance in modern-day Zimbabwe. The unresolved issue of compensation for far-reaching land restitution also poses a continued impediment to any improvement in British–Zimbabwean relations. Given the impassioned accusations against the British government for its failure to fund a substantial land transfer scheme at independence, which gathered pace and vehemence in the late 1990s, this article offers new evidence of British officials’ deliberations on whether or not to implement a far-reaching land transfer scheme in 1979, repeating the approach towards another white settler colony, Kenya.
