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| The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe - may peace, truth and justice prevail. |
Witnesses in a spotter aircraft saw tractors and other farm equipment, along with household effects, being removed after the owners evacuated their families.
Morgan Tsvangirai’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change condemned events in Chinhoyi as “a descent into anarchy”. The party said: “People do not feel safe in the face of a reign of terror by Zanu (PF) thugs, some of whom have been fast-tracked into senior police positions.”
The party is demanding a full inquiry into the shooting dead by troops of two striking workers at the Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company at Kwekwe in the Midlands on Wednesday. A police spokesman said that the two men were killed and four injured when a rifle discharged accidentally as strikers tried to wrest it from a soldier.
The 21 white farmers detained by police since Monday after clashes with pro-government militants were yesterday facing the prospect of a further four days in prison when a magistrate in Chinhoyi refused them bail.
Supporters of President Mugabe’s “fast-track land reform programme” were jubilant as the men were taken into court for the fourth time, barefoot and shackled to each other.
The independent Financial Gazette quoted intelligence sources as saying that Mr Mugabe had given instructions to self-styled war veterans involved in farm invasions to force whites off their land before the start of the rains in October, in the hope they would abandon court action to retain their property
August 10, 2001
BY ANGUS SHAW
HARARE, Zimbabwe--Violence spread across at least 15 white-owned farms in northern Zimbabwe on Thursday as ruling party militants and illegal land occupiers engaged in widespread looting, farmers' leaders said.
Farmers and their families were forced out of 10 farms in the Lion's Den, Mhangura and Doma districts near Chinhoyi, where 21 white farmers were in court facing charges they attacked black squatters, the Commercial Farmers Union said.
The court in Chinhoyi, 70 miles northwest of Harare, adjourned the farmers' bail hearings to today, ordering the men held in custody for a fourth night. One 72-year-old farmer suffering from a heart ailment was freed Wednesday after collapsing in the courthouse.
No information was immediately available from police on Thursday's violence.
Farmers' union spokeswoman Jenni Williams said in addition to the 10 farms that were evacuated, five other farms were besieged Thursday and one homestead was burned to the ground. ''There is widespread looting,'' she said.
Cattle had been herded away and tractors and other equipment was stolen, she said.
Farm buildings were trashed and vehicles were used to take away furniture, fertilizer and building materials, district union officials reported. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
Black squatters led by ruling party militants and veterans of Zimbabwe's independence war have occupied--often violently--more than 1,700 white-owned farms since March 2000.
The government has listed 4,600 farms--about 95 percent of properties owned by whites--for ''fast track'' confiscation without compensation. The 4,000 white farmers own about one-third of the Zimbabwe's productive land.
After their arrest Monday, the detained farmers were not given food for 24 hours and had not been allowed to receive food or clothing and blankets from their families despite the low overnight temperatures, district union officials said.
A farm official who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals said several of the farmers' homes were searched and licensed weapons were seized.
The union said the farmers arrested Monday went to help a besieged neighbor, leading to violent clashes with militants occupying his land. Militants wielding clubs and sticks chased farmer Tony Barklay into his house and attempted to smash down the door, demanding he leave the property, the union said.
Barklay radioed for help and militants stoned the cars of two white neighbors who arrived at his home. About 25 farmers from the district then went to their assistance.
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Between 10 and 40 families are reported to have left their homes near the town of Chinhoyi after being attacked by groups of government supporters.
 People (are) reporting beatings, property being set on fire,
property being stolen and people having to escape  |
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Farming official |
On Wednesday, militant youths from President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party threatened to attack them if they were set free.
Outside the court building, hundreds of singing and chanting government supporters had again gathered on Thursday.
Distress
A farming official who declined to be named said: "We are getting distress signals from all around Chinhoyi, people reporting beatings, property being set on fire, property being stolen and people having to escape."
As part of Mr Mugabe's policy of redistributing land, groups of war veterans and poor black farmers have been encouraged to settle on land forcibly taken from white owners by the Zimbabwean Government.
Following 80 years of colonial rule, whites own about 60% of Zimbabwe's most fertile agricultural land.
So far, nine white farmers have been killed in incidents linked to the land invasions. Two black people - a policeman and a settler - have also been killed.
Ralph Corbett, 76, became the latest victim on Monday when he succumbed to the wounds he sustained after being attacked by unknown assailants on 3 August.
In July, a white farmer was charged with murder after allegedly running over a man who had settled on his farm and dragging his body behind his truck for 20 metres.
Defenceless
The 21 farmers are accused of ganging up and brutally attacking defenceless resettled farmers at a farm on Monday, leaving five injured.
But the farmers say they were acting out of self-defence when self-styled war veterans tried to attack one of them.
Farmers have expressed surprise that none of the war veterans were arrested at the scene of the original fight or during the anti-white attacks which have hit the Chinhoyi region since.
 Many settlers have been living in the open for 18
months |
Peter Chanetsa, governor of Mashonaland West province - of which Chinhoyi is the capital - told state television that the farmers who were in custody should know that the government would definitely now target all of their land in the on-going land resdistribution exercise.
And speaking on state television, Home Affairs Minister John Nkomo blamed white farmers and not pro-government war veterans for the recent upsurge in violence in the countryside.
"No war veterans have been causing any problems on the farms," Mr Nkomo said.
The land invasions are widely seen as a ploy by Mr Mugabe to overcome the threat of the new opposition Movement for Democratic Change, MDC.
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 10 August
White farms 'cleansed' by Mugabe mobs
Chinhoyi - When a mob laid siege to Two Trees farm yesterday, sealing off the property with roadblocks, a carefully planned operation swung into action to sow terror among the white landowners around Chinhoyi. Barely seven hours later, the owner of Two Trees and 19 other farmers had fled, leaving the mobs in complete control of the area - free to loot the homesteads and assault the black farm workers at will. It was the latest escalation of President Robert Mugabe's offensive against white farmers, and amounted to the ethnic cleansing of a swathe of Zimbabwe's most fertile region.The mob violence unleashed against whites on the streets of Chinhoyi 75 miles north-west of Harare, on Tuesday has been spread to nearby farms - shattering the tightly knit rural community. Among those fleeing last night was Les de Jager, the owner of Two Trees, near Lion's Den, about 30 miles north of Chinhoyi. He was driving to South Africa. Earlier in the day, the mob – with military precision - had sealed off his farmhouse by felling trees across the road. They seized tractors and trailers, loaded them with all of Mr de Jager's fertiliser and drove them away.
Charl Geldehys, the farm manager, confronted the thieves. They shot his dog and then opened fire on him, missing narrowly. He retreated into the homestead, with his wife, Tertia, his sick daughter, Maritia, 12, and three-month-old baby girl. Neighbouring farmers heard Tertia Geldehys sobbing over the radio. The family huddled in the homestead with Mr de Jager for seven hours, listening to the baying mob. Their telephone line was cut and only the radio link with other farmers saved them from total isolation. The siege was broken at 3pm when police finally responded, accompanied by Peter Chanetsa, the provincial governor. Yet the family's ordeal was not over. They were berated by the squatters, while cameras from state television rolled to capture every moment of their ritual humiliation. Mr Geldehys took his family to a safe house on the outskirts of Chinhoyi. A friend said: "He's in a very bad way. He's just too upset to talk to anyone right now."
The mobs were then joined by hundreds of members of the youth league of Mr Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party. A general alert was broadcast to farmers in the Doma-Mhangura area. Hastily packing whatever belongings were to hand, they pulled out of their homes. As they fled, the mobs moved in. One farmer, who asked not to be named, said: "The squatters went absolutely mad. They stripped the farmhouses. They looted everything they could." Black workers were rounded up and forced to fill tractor trailers with the looted possessions. Scores were beaten. Jenni Williams, of the Commercial Farmers' Union, said: "Many of the workers have been taken for 're-education'." This is a Zanu PF euphemism for the violent intimidation of voters. Taking the families of workers into account, perhaps 10,000 blacks lived on the farms that have been evacuated. Their fate, in an area dominated by Mr Mugabe's mobs, is unclear.
The panic later spread, once again, to the town of Chinhoyi. Lomagundi school, which serves the area's white farmers, closed a day early for the half-term break. A bus that would have driven the children to the town was abandoned. It would have been too easy a target. At the farming town of Karoi, 70 miles up the road, the Rydings school also closed early as a precaution. When the farmers' union sent a plane over the area north of Chinhoyi at 3pm, the only figures visible in the lush fields were squatters. Those farmers who remained were huddled fearfully inside their homesteads. None would be named for fear of reprisals. One said: "They're just waiting for us. Its very hard to restrain feelings of fear and anger, especially at night."
From The Independent (UK), 10 August
Mugabe's thugs push Zimbabwe towards race war
By Basildon Peta
As my car descended a steep section of the highway into Chinhoyi yesterday, I was suddenly gripped by an acute sense that Zimbabwe is sliding into a dark and bottomless pit. I was not only unnerved by the tense atmosphere around Chinhoyi magistrates' court, where 23 white farmers were at a bail hearing after being charged with "inciting violence" against black squatters. Now came news of at least 30 white families packing up and fleeing their Chinhoyi homes. I had barely recovered from the horrific experience of covering a parliamentary by-election in Bindura two weeks ago. There I interviewed opposition supporters who had been maimed, tortured and raped by ruling Zanu PF party supporters during the campaign period of the by-election. There was no doubt in my mind that Zimbabwe, for long an oasis of peace and stability in volatile Africa, was now on a dangerous knife-edge. The violence in my country, which suddenly erupted again this week with the clashes between the white farmers in Chinhoyi and the self-styled war veterans doing the bidding of President Robert Mugabe, is threatening to become a race war.
The cries of Graham Coleman, a South African tourist, are still fresh in my mind. Mr Coleman was in Zimbabwe on holiday but was abducted and detained by war veterans as soon as he arrived at his brother's farm in Marondera. "I had read about violence in Zimbabwe but I didn't know it was this bad. I wish I had not come here," Mr Coleman had said as he wept down the telephone to me two days ago. He sounded like all the other victims of political violence inspired by Zanu PF whom I had spoken to over the past few weeks. They include peasants who have lost their villages and property because of their support for the opposition, aid agencies and diplomats who have been attacked for "funding" the opposition, civil servants who have been victimised, and many other victims of the violence raging in Zimbabwe.
My thoughts also went to the 36 black opposition supporters murdered in the run-up to the general election in June last year and to the nine white farmers murdered in ongoing violence on the commercial farms. All the ruling party thugs responsible for these murders are roaming the streets of Zimbabwe scot free. Throughout the 75-mile journey from Harare, I realised that everything I had written about my beloved country over the past 12 months had been about doom and gloom. Now, as I descended into Chinhoyi for the second time in two days, I felt saddened that I was on my umpteenth mission to record another sad chapter - the arrest of the 23 white farmers after what was clearly racially motivated violence.
On a nearby farm, I tracked down an elderly white woman who had been attacked in a supermarket on Tuesday. The 72-year-old woman lives on the farm with her son but had seemed oblivious to the political tensions in the town until she became a victim herself of the ruling party thugs who went on the rampage, beating any white person they came across in Chinhoyi, after the farmers' arrest. "I don't think she will speak to you after what happened to her. She has not come to terms with the incident. She is now dead scared to talk to strangers," the guard said. When I was eventually allowed inside, she pleaded: "Please don't ever use my name or that of my son. They will come after me ... In fact I won't say much. I don't understand how anyone can dare beat a 72-year-old." She and her niece had been beaten before strangers had come to their rescue and they managed to flee. All white businesses in Chinhoyi had shut shortly afterwards on the advice of the police.
Yesterday I spoke to another white farmer as he prepared to abandon his property. "I can no longer take the risk. I don't think there is still a place for any white person in Zimbabwe. It's now a choice between life and death," said the farmer, who said he was flying to South Africa. He said the mainly white Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) was preparing to evacuate all whites who wanted to leave Chinhoyi and the surrounding farming areas of Karoi, Mhangura and Doma. Last night, a CFU official said at least 30 white families had already fled violence around Chinhoyi. Many more had asked the CFU to help to evacuate them. All the white farmers interviewed during my visit to Chinhoyi agreed that they were victims of racial violence that was being fanned by Mr Mugabe and his supporters ahead of next year's presidential elections. "We have lived here since independence in 1980 but we have never experienced these problems until Mr Mugabe started scapegoating us for his government's failures," said another farmer. Mr Mugabe blames the whites and Britain for sabotaging the economy.
Blacks in Chinhoyi confirmed that the racial violence in their town was being driven by ruling party stalwarts who believed they could win more black votes for Mugabe by driving the whites off their land and redistributing it among blacks. "Now for you to be safe here, you just have to pretend that you are a ruling party supporter even if you are not," said Andrew Motsi, a black shoemaker. A local shopkeeper, who did not want to be named, said: "If they give me a piece of land I will take it. But that will not guarantee them my vote." I asked myself -is this the reconciliation and freedom President Mugabe promised to all Zimbabweans when he stood with Prince Charles to witness the bringing down of the Union Jack in 1980? Definitely not. Mr Mugabe's motive is clear - to remain in power. In pursuit of that goal, he has brought a once-promising nation to its knees.
From The New York Times, 10 August
Unrest Intensifies in Struggle to Control Zimbabwe Farms
Chinhoyi – 9 August - With the government vowing to step up its seizures of white-owned farms and Western countries weighing punitive steps, tension has flared across Zimbabwe in recent days, and this city north of the capital has been one of the hottest flash points. Clashes on Monday night between white farmers and poor blacks who had occupied a farm touched off the latest surge in tensions, and landed 22 white men, all but one of them farmers, in jail here, charged with causing public violence. Today, as more than 100 government loyalists chanted angrily outside the courthouse where the men who had been arrested were to appear, dozens of white families were fleeing their homesteads after confrontations with black squatters, the Commercial Farmers Union said. At least four houses were looted and at least two white farmers were shot at, said David Rockingham-Gill, regional executive of the farmers union. "Nothing has been worse than today, not in this province," Mr. Rockingham-Gill said.
George Charamba, a spokesman for President Robert Mugabe, said the increase in confrontations in recent days was driven by the white farmers in a ploy to win sympathy in the United States and among the Commonwealth nations. Foreign ministers from several Commonwealth countries will meet next week in Nigeria to try to make some progress on Zimbabwe before a meeting of heads of government scheduled for October in Australia. "What they want to do is convince those ministers that there is lawlessness, that there is violence, and what's more that they are victims of that violence," Mr. Charamba said in an interview tonight. "Unfortunately that trick is not working because it's quite clear, in all the cases, that the commercial farmers did initiate the confrontations. These guys have been coexisting for months and it's just now that you have this."
But opponents of the president said another wave of government-sanctioned intimidation is under way in Zimbabwe as the government finds itself under mounting international pressure and the economy founders ahead of next year's presidential election. "The weaker they feel, the more aggressive they become," said David Coltart, a member of Parliament from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, "and I think this escalation in violence is a result of them feeling increasingly isolated internationally. I think they're realizing that the net is closing in terms of the Commonwealth, in terms of South Africa losing patience. And they've decided that the only way out of this jam is to provoke a hostile response from white farmers."
The confrontations come as the government has pledged to step up its program to redistribute white-owned land to poor blacks. After saying for months that the state planned to acquire about 12 million acres of white-owned land, Agriculture Minister Joseph Made announced last week that the government now plans to take 20 million acres, and warned commercial farmers to avoid antagonizing the black squatters occupying white farms. The first clash erupted here on Monday, when a group of white farmers came to the aid of a colleague who they believed was being attacked by a black squatter, the farmers union said. In the melee, both blacks and whites apparently were hurt, and the sight of the injured blacks in the state-owned media prompted a spate of revenge attacks this week by supporters of the governing party on whites around Chinhoyi.
Today, as they had done the day before, when they chased away local and foreign journalists, young party loyalists barred all reporters but those working for the state media from the proceedings in the courthouse. A journalist from The Daily News, Zimbabwe's only privately owned daily newspaper, fled in a car when several young party activists walked toward him. A foreign journalist, who was surrounded and menaced by the same men, had his notes torn up and was warned by a policeman watching the encounter that he was "going to be assaulted."
While most of the people attacked and killed in Zimbabwe's political violence over the last 18 months have been black, the targeting of whites has stirred particular interest in the West, and in the coming months Zimbabwe could find itself even more isolated. In the United States, the House is expected to take up legislation, recently passed by the Senate, that could freeze overseas assets and restrict the travel of Mr. Mugabe and some of his closest aides while setting strict conditions for resuming the international assistance Zimbabwe desperately needs. Zimbabwe has criticized the bill as an attack on its sovereignty, and Mr. Charamba, the presidential spokesman, said the world underestimates the determination and fortitude of this former British colony.
From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 10 August
Penalty of living in bush war's birthplace
When President Robert Mugabe's mobs launched their attacks on white-owned farms around Chinhoyi, they would have been inspired by the example of the first heroes of the war against colonial rule. The small town, nestling amid the lush fields of Zimbabwe's agricultural heartland, is the cradle of the "liberation struggle". Few places have such importance in Mr Mugabe's carefully crafted mythology. In 1966, a small band of poorly trained guerrillas infiltrated white Rhodesia from neighbouring Zambia and went south towards Chinhoyi, then called Sinoia. They tried to blow up power pylons and raided a farm, killing Hendrik Viljoen and his wife. Rhodesian forces ambushed them and hunted them with helicopters for most of the next day. All 14 guerrillas were killed. Mr Mugabe later hailed this defeat as the Battle of Chinhoyi, marking the onset of the bush war against Ian Smith's government. The next serious attacks were not launched until December 1972, when farms around Centenary were raided.
Heroes' Day, the annual occasion on which Zimbabweans remember the dead from the war, falls on Monday. This year is the 35th anniversary of the Battle of Chinhoyi. It is clear why the latest offensive against white farmers has occurred now, and why those around Chinhoyi were singled out. The war against Rhodesia is known as the Second Chimurenga - "revolution". Mr Mugabe has hailed the campaign to seize white-owned land as the Third Chimurenga and the "final liberation". His inflammatory speeches stoke revolutionary zeal. Chinhoyi is barely 20 miles from Mr Mugabe's home district, Zvimba, enhancing its significance. White farmers are paying the price for living in the cradle of Zimbabwe.
From The Advertiser (Australia), 10 August
Security fears delay farm trial
Harare – A judge delayed a hearing yesterday for 21 white farmers accused of attacking occupiers on a farm, citing security concerns at the courtroom. Magistrate Godfrey Gwaka remanded the high-profile case to today and ordered the 21 farmers held overnight, observers in the courtroom said. Mr Gwaka was reported to be afraid that people at the courthouse in the northern town of Chinhoyi were likely to become violent, particularly as it was almost dark when the farmers appeared.
Independent and foreign journalists were chased from the courthouse by militant youths, identified by residents in Chinhoyi as supporters of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. Journalists from the state-controlled media were allowed inside. The farmers were arrested after clashes on Monday with militants occupying their land. The case has ignited racial tensions in the area, with several white people being attacked yesterday on the streets on Chinhoyi, 100km northwest of Harare.
Police said yesterday that 23 farmers stood accused of assaulting five people who had occupied a farm. It was unclear whether the remaining two were still in custody. Thousands of squatters led by ruling party militants and veterans of the war for independence have illegally occupied more than 1700 white-owned farms since March 2000. The government has listed 4600 farms, about 95 per cent of properties owned by whites, for "fast track" confiscation without compensation. Militant government supporters began forcibly occupying white-owned farms 18 months ago, after Mr Mugabe lost a referendum on a new constitution.
Mr Mugabe has backed the forcible occupations of hundreds of white-owned farms as part of his scheme to redress colonial inequities in land ownership. Farmers' leaders said there were fears the court hearing could trigger more violence against whites by ruling party militants. Rampaging groups of ruling party militants attacked whites yesterday in Chinhoyi. One white-owned farm south of Chinhoyi town was besieged by militants, but farmer Trevor Cuerdon fled after receiving death threats. The Commercial Farmers Union, representing white landowners, said the arrested farmers went to help a besieged neighbour on Monday, leading to violent clashes with militants occupying his land.
Militants wielding clubs and sticks chased farmer Tony Barklay into his house and tried to smash down the door, demanding he leave the property, the union said. Mr Barklay radioed for help and militants stoned the cars of two white neighbours who arrived at his home. About 25 farmers from the district then went to their assistance. "We now think it was a deliberate trap the farmers fell right into," said Mr Cuerdon's neighbour. "We're telling everyone to be on alert and not to be provoked." The ploy was believed to have been timed to coincide with an upcoming weekend Heroes' Day holiday honouring black guerrillas who fought against white rule and for independence, gained from Britain in 1980.
From The Daily News, 9 August
Ex-CIO boss urges government to impose State of Emergency
Shadreck Chipanga, the Zanu PF MP for Makoni East, said yesterday the government should impose a State of Emergency once the United States House of Representatives passes the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Bill. But an MDC MP from Matabeleland said the consequences of a State of Emergency would be as horrendous as they were in the 1983-87 period. Chipanga, a former Central Intelligence Organisation director-general, said a State of Emergency should be declared once the Bill passes through the US Congress and is eventually signed into law by President George W Bush.
Responding to the President’s speech at the opening of Parliament, Chipanga said: "If and when this Bill is passed into law, the government must make sure that a State of Emergency is invoked. That is the only weapon in our kit we can use to protect ourselves." The Bill, which seeks to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe, was passed by the full US Senate last week. The government has blamed the MDC for assisting the US in drafting the legislation. It is aimed at punishing President Mugabe and close allies for failing to curb lawlessness related to the farm invasions.
Chipanga called on government to ensure ensure that "no by-election or no election of any sort is held in this country. "After declaring the State of Emergency, people, particularly those who are in the habit of globe-trotting, will not be allowed to leave the country and visit their "cousins". The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Stan Mudenge, was the first to hint at the introduction of a State of Emergency if the Bill became law. He said last year: "The government would have to take emergency measures to survive. Doesn’t that normally lead to the suspension of certain democratic devices so that the country can survive?"
Chipanga was immediately challenged by Edward Moyo Mkhosi, the MDC MP for Bulilimamangwe South, who said a State of Emergency was not the best way to deal with such situations. He attacked the government for flouting its own laws and the Constitution, only to blame it on others when punitive action was imposed. "Since 1983 to about 1987, I’ve seen the effect of the State of Emergency, it was a horrendous period," said Mkhosi. "That is what caused all the anger in Matabeleland. Let us not introduce things that will devour us here. Nobody will ever be safe. In Matabeleland we lost 20 000 people because of the State of Emergency."
Life with Zanu comes to town
Zimbabwe has once more surfaced in the international press. After months of burial in the single columns of "world briefs" half-hidden in the folds of the daily papers, the appalling recent events in Kwekwe and Chinhoyi have made the front pages. There are a number of reasons for this renewed interest – northern hemisphere politicians taking their summer holidays, a slow news day with nothing much new to report from the Middle East. And some would say that the prominence given to Zimbabwe in the last two days is purely because white Zimbabweans have been the prime victims. There is probably some truth to this.
But the real reason is that, once again, Zanu PF has chosen to flaunt its "degrees in violence" in the open glare of Zimbabwe’s towns and cities. The last time that Zimbabwe enjoyed such prominence in the overseas press was during the factory invasion spree, and threats by Chenjerai Hunzvi to invade embassies and foreign aid agencies several months ago. Cynics remarked at the time that the only time foreign governments got worked up enough to "do something" was when their diplomats and resident nationals were directly targeted and threatened. And whatever ‘they’ did, it had some effect – the factory invasions were scaled down and foreign missions have not been attacked.
The events of the last two days do mark a change in tactics by President Mugabe – sharply intensifying the pressure on the white minority, farmers and town-dwellers alike, in the hope that they will pack their bags and leave. Reports from Harare yesterday suggest that ruling party thugs were wandering the streets demanding that passersby produce Zanu PF membership cards - failure to produce one resulting in swift physical chastisement. Women with children were singled out for assault, along with Zimbabweans of Indian descent.
But if the tension has been raised, the overall strategy has not changed. Mugabe has, for the last 18 months, been attacking anyone and everyone who poses even the slightest risk to his ambition of retaining power. It’s just that the majority of the voters whose support he must coerce in order to survive live out of the glare of the media, in remote areas which are easy to seal off from intruders - areas in which his gangs of marauding thugs can roam at will - raping, pillaging, burning, and murdering with impunity. We have received a report in the last few days of a schoolgirl in a rural school telling of her grandfather being beaten to death, and her grandmother being forced to watch while Zanu PF thugs decapitated his body. This is not just a sudden escalation of violence – it is a shift into the limelight of what has been happening in the rural areas and townships of Zimbabwe without letup since February last year.
There is another widely held misperception. What is happening in Kwekwe, Chinhoyi and Harare – and everywhere else in Zimbabwe since early last year - is not anarchy. The government constantly claims that the farm invasions are spontaneous, that it is not in control of the ‘war veterans’, and that to re-establish the rule of law risks an explosion into civil war. But the murders, street stabbings, and assaults inside police stations, are about as anarchic as the Bolshoi Ballet. President Mugabe is – to put it politely – a control freak. His oft-quoted comment from his early days in power puts it succinctly. When asked what he aspired to, he said :"Total power." Asked to define total power, he replied : "When a man is starving and begging for food, you are the only person who can give it to him."
Up until the beginning of last year, nothing much happened in Zimbabwe without Mugabe’s approval. And what he is doing now is to try and restore the status quo ante. The violence is choreographed - Zimbabwe is not Sudan or Somalia. There are local criminals with pretensions of being warlords, and individuals pursuing personal grudges and enrichment, but they are allowed to do so because they are acting in the current interests of Mugabe and Zanu PF. If they were not, they would be stamped on – hard.
From The Times (UK), 9 August
Zimbabwe minister blames white farmers for violence
Harare - In a week of some of the worst state-driven violence in the past 18 months, Zimbabwe’s Home Affairs Minister accused white farmers last night of provoking the unrest and promised measures "to nip it in the bud". "It’s true the farmers have been attacking people," John Nkomo said on state television. "It’s the farmers who have been unleashing this violence." He spoke on the day that 21 white farmers appeared in court in the northern town of Chinhoyi, about 60 miles north of Harare, on charges of public violence. His remarks came as President Mugabe’s campaign of harassment of whites continued unabated. One white farmer died in hospital on Tuesday after being struck on the head with an axe by a suspected squatter.
The farmers, including a Briton and three South Africans, were ordered to spend another night in the town jail and to appear again today for a routine remand. On Tuesday the town was the scene of a wave of attacks on whites in what residents said was a deliberate random mugging operation run by the local Zanu (PF) party office and condoned by the police. "The war veterans (Mr Mugabe’s militia) are not perpetrators of any violence against the farmers," Mr Nkomo said. "No war veterans have been causing any violence." Nine white farmers and 28 farmworkers have been murdered since the veterans mounted their bloody campaign in February last year, without a single prosecution. Observers say that there is anxiety among the country’s scattered white communities that the "Heroes" holiday this weekend, which commemorates the fallen of the country’s war of independence, will be used as an excuse for widening harassment. Mr Nkomo’s remarks are seen as removing what little restraint there is left among Mr Mugabe’s militias.
From The Daily News, 7 August
MP Bennet refuses to budge as invaders descend on farm
Scores of invaders have descended on Charleswood Estates which is owned by the MDC MP for Chimanimani, Roy Bennet. The farm has an Export Processing Zones coffee project and two timber projects approved by the Zimbabwe Investment Centre. "They want to punish the people of Chimanimani for voting for me," Bennet said, referring to Zanu PF officials in Manicaland. They want to displace me and destroy the MDC in the area." He said war veterans were now moving to his irrigated fields in a desperate move to drive him away. But he vowed: "I have a commitment to foreign investors. I will not move off."
The MP employs 800 permanent workers, while between 600 and 1 000 others work part-time over weekends. Two weeks ago, Ignatius Chombo, the Minister of Local Government and National Housing, led a delegation of Zanu PF and government officials to the farm. He ordered Agritex officials demarcating the property to speed up the process so that people could begin settling there by 2 August. Chombo declared during his visit that Munacho Mutezo, a Zanu PF activist who lost the Chimanimani parliamentary seat to Bennet last year, would occupy the main farmhouse. Bennet said he offered the government an unutilised part of his 2 800 hectare farm for resettlement. But the government seems determined to take over the entire farm and intends to resettle 67 families on it. Scores of war veterans and Zanu PF supporters have already allocated themselves land on the farm ahead of these plans. A group of 60 war veterans occupied the farm last year and temporarily took Bennet’s wife, Heather, hostage.
