”No white person will be allowed to own land,” Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said on Wednesday,“They can own industries and companies, or stay in apartments in our towns, but they cannot own land.”

“We hear in some cases they are being protected by cabinet ministers and politicians within their constituencies. We will deal with that.”

The president was was addressing a crowd at an event where small-scale farmers, resettled since 2000 on farms reclaimed from white people, learned that their right of abode on the land they were given, is changing.

Lands Minister Douglas Mombeshora recently began voiding agreements given to over 200 000 families for small pieces of land since the land reforms began in 2000. The agreement was known as an “offer” letter, signed by provincial land officials. Those agreements will now be abandoned and the families, all resettled on land confiscated without compensation from white farmers, will need leases or permits to replace their tenure agreements.

According to Mombeshora, the new permits are designed to allow new farmers to raise loans, using their leases on land as security for the money they borrow to fund crops.

Multiple farm owners will also lose land beyond a single farm. An unknown number of white farmers who lost their land sublet from new owners.