ABSTRACT
This chapter describes at the diplomatic record to uncover various aspects of how international and local actors dealt with the notion of compensating white Rhodesians for their properties and assets. It may seem at first an odd way of exploring the more recent Fast Track Land Reform and the connected politics of race and land in Zimbabwe, but it is an important historical process to consider. The chapter may be useful to help historically examine a much talked about variable since the support of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) for land occupations in 2000. It jumps back to a period of intense international focus and negotiations over Zimbabwe, between 1976 and 1979. There was a plan put forward in 1977 by Ivor Richards, and then by David Owen, when he took over as Britain's Foreign Secretary, to create a trust fund for whites as part of the Anglo-American Plan.
