GAPWUZ report: If something is wrong . . . The invisible suffering of commercial farm workers and their families due to “Land Reform”.

"We may have different skin colours but if something wrong is being done it upsets everyone." – Farm Worker 20

Report produced for the General Agricultural & Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe [GAPWUZ] by the Research and Advocacy Unit [RAU] and the Justice For Agriculture [JAG] Trust

Introduction

This report presents the findings of preliminary quantitative and qualitative surveys of workers on commercial farms in the wake of the catastrophic “Land Reform” policy in Zimbabwe. Whilst the companion reports produced from this series of projects have received some attention, this report is the first to deal solely with data gathered from the farm workers themselves. It represents the views of only a small section of the 1.8 million people that lived and worked on Zimbabwe’s commercial farms. However, the continued gathering of data means that in time we will be able to paint a detailed picture of the lives of farm workers across the country, as they struggled over the last nine years with state-sponsored invasions, torture, violent assaults, murders, rapes, evictions and other violations of the law and their rights. For the moment, though, the data presented here makes no claim to be statistically representative.

Nevertheless, what emerges makes sobering reading. The prevalence of human rights violations recorded by the sample in this survey is disturbing. The data also shows that earlier estimates by farmers of the violations experienced by their workers appear to be largely consistent with estimates made by the workers themselves. This lends further credibility to extremely high figures of violation prevalence. The fact, for example, that 1 in 10 of the present respondents report at least one murder amongst fellow farm workers, and that 38 percent of respondents report that children on the farms were forced to watch public beatings or torture, shows the extent to which Robert Mugabe’s regime is responsible for an extensive series of crimes that were both widespread and systematic: the very definition of crimes against humanity.

Whilst this claim has been made, and rightfully, many times about the disregard by Mugabe and his ZANU PF supporters for human life, it is nowhere more apparent than in relation to the situation on Zimbabwe’s farms. The evidence indicates clearly that the Zimbabwean “Land Reform” was not, as ZANU PF would have people believe: a socially responsible exercise where an unfortunate few white farmers became regrettable but necessary ‘collateral damage’ as precious State resources were munificently redistributed to the poor and needy. It was, rather, a violent, State-sponsored and systematic attack on 1.8 million people in order to wipe out any illusions of political freedom they might have cherished, to force them into the ranks of strict ZANU PF orthodoxy and to prevent them from lending support to the fledgling Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) opposition party.

In this report, and in the other reports from the companion projects, the term “Land Reform” appears throughout in inverted commas. This is because “Land Reform” has not been the salutary restructuring of land ownership and agricultural production that the term suggests. A huge proportion of land remains in the hands of wealthy politically connected “A2” farmers, effectively changing the skin colour of the old dispensation, but maintaining the wealth gap between rich and poor. Political patronage has resulted in all the land – and the word ‘all’ is used advisedly – being allocated to ZANU PF supporters. Under the current dispensation, these occupiers do not own the land, or even lease it, and can be evicted from the property at any moment, without notice. Possession is entirely dependent upon the goodwill and whims of ZANU PF government officials. This patronage system further demands and enforces fealty by the holders of land to ZANU PF.

This report also questions, as the others have before, the net increase in the number of people living on the land in the wake of “Land Reform”. Even if government’s own figure of 350 000 families being resettled is taken as accurate – not necessarily always the case with government’s figures – this report should awaken suspicion about the number of farm workers displaced from the farms. Only a third of the current sample are still living on a farm.

This almost certainly points to mass displacements on a vast scale, not matched by the numbers resettled.

In addition, it should be noted that this report is primarily concerned with a particular subsection of the human rights violations that have been perpetrated against farm workers.

Whilst the focus here is on violations of physical integrity and political freedoms, many other human rights have also been violated. For example, here only brief mention is made of violations of the rights to security of employment, work, health, shelter, education, food, water, sanitation or information, or of the denial of basic freedoms such as freedom of association or freedom of expression.

Finally, though, it ought to be remembered that the current report does not make national claims. The sample size is too small and it is geographically skewed. Indeed, it is our wish that the victims of the “Land Reform” programme be heard in their full individuality, as well as in the collective voice of the statistical mass. It is for this reason that this report presents representative narratives from the victims as examples of the statistics discussed.

Data collection continues, and each completed survey adds further evidence of the scale and nature of the gross human rights violations that have taken place in the name of “Land Reform” in Zimbabwe, one of the clearest examples of the Government’s several crimes against humanity.

Under the resettlement scheme two models exist: A1, where poor communal farmers are allocated small plots; and A2, where rich farmers are allocated entire farms or large portions thereof.

Methodology

The data presented here has been gathered in the pilot phase of the Commercial Farm Worker Displacement Project, where methodological techniques were tested and refined. At the end of most sections, qualitative excerpts from full-length narrative interviews have been given verbatim, in translated form, in order to put a human face on the kinds of statistical data given here. The excerpts from the narrative interviews have been anonymised to prevent further reprisals against victims and witnesses, although the current study possesses full details of all deponents. These narrative testimonies are drawn from a pool of a mere 30 deponents. It must be pointed out that these 30 deponents were not chosen for the degree of hardship they had suffered, or the severity of the violations perpetrated against them; rather, the authors arranged the available farm worker testimonies alphabetically, and took extracts from the first 30 when arranged in this order.

This sample of 30 deponents is below the 166 quantitative respondents, as their testimony is being used mainly as an illustration of the statistics.

The quantitative data was collected in a period when various quantitative survey structures were designed and tested and subsequently refined. As a finalised quantitative survey has now been prepared, and is presented in Appendix 1, the data gathered on the five separate pilot surveys has been collated and cleaned for the purposes of the analysis in this report.

The first draft of the survey is also presented in Appendix 1, so that comparisons can be made and the development of this survey understood.

The first draft of the quantitative survey was adapted from the survey used to interview Commercial Farmers, the Damages Questionnaire or “DQ”. However, it quickly became clear that the first farm worker survey had several shortcomings, some inherited from the DQ, and some of its own. For example, and this is a problem first encountered in the DQ, when respondents are asked if a particular violation occurred on a farm, they can often answer with a reasonable degree of confidence. However, if one asks them how many people were victims of this violation, they are seldom in a position to answer this accurately. For this reason, fields indicating numbers of victims were dropped quite early on in the process of refinement and restructuring. This process is now complete. Several completely new questions are likely to result in crucial data becoming available to the public for the first time. For example, it is expected that the long list of possible lost property will result in some quite accurate estimates for property losses by farm workers, one of the many hitherto hidden consequences of their ill-treatment.

Because of the five different versions of the survey, and in some cases five different versions of one question, the collation of the data has been difficult though not impossible. For this reason it is important to note the number of respondents who answered any particular question. This will be given in the text and in graphics by the standard, for example, “n = 67”, for a question where 67 responses were recorded. This is important because some questions have as few as 15 respondents. Questions with less than 15 respondents were abandoned as inadequate for statistical purposes and have been left out of this report. Obviously, where 100 people are asked a question the average response is likely to be more representative of the general population than where only ten people are asked that same question. The greatest number of responses to any question is 166, the total number of people included in the five versions of the survey.

Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected in two main ways: through the farmer, or using GAPWUZ representation in the field. When workers were contacted via the farmer, they were often still employed and living a comparatively better life than their colleagues who had been evicted or abandoned without jobs. Moreover, those workers approached via GAPWUZ were more likely to be still living on the farm and to be current GAPWUZ members, that is, still working. This means that this survey has not yet accessed workers whose situation was even more critical, for example those who became unwanted squatters in the rural areas or in informal settlements in town, or those whose principal means of coping financially became illegal gold panning or cross-border trading. To state it baldly, the authors believe that the respondents in our survey are in a better position than the average former farm worker in Zimbabwe.

There are several biases present in the sample: firstly, it is biased geographically, as the initial stages of surveying were all done in or around Harare; secondly, it over-represents domestic workers, as many of the first workers interviewed were domestic workers still working for an ex-farmer who had now moved to town; thirdly, it over-represents workers in authority, as initially contacts were made with workers through their employers, and employers were more likely to have contact details for their former managers, supervisors and foremen than general hands or labourers.

It is possible these biases could affect the data but they have been ignored at present as:

• it is the authors’ contention that these biases are small and are unlikely to substantively affect the content of this report, and as

• this report does not make any claim of representativeness.

Results

Sample Geography

The sample, like the sample of farmers in Reckless Tragedy: Irreversible?, is skewed towards the Mashonaland and Manicaland provinces. Not a single respondent has yet been surveyed from the Matabeleland provinces. However, as with the farmers, it should be noted that the majority of farms, and the more labour-intensive farms and agri-businesses, were in the Mashonaland and Manicaland provinces. This fact means that the bias is not as great as one would imagine from the table below. Future stages of the research will ensure a more even and representative geographical spread of farm workers.

Province                            Number                   %

Mashonaland West                   66                            40%

Mashonaland East                   39                            23%

Mashonaland Central          29                            18%

Manicaland                            27                            16%

Midlands                           4                            2%

Masvingo                            1                            1%

Grand Total                   166                            100%

Sample Demographics

The average age of the sample respondents is 39 years, which is considerably younger than 57 years, the average age of the respondents in Reckless Tragedy: Irreversible?, the companion report on commercial farmers.

This is very significant. The average year of birth for our sample is 1969. This means that, by the end of the independence war in 1980, on average the sample would have been only 11 years old, and would only have begun high school in an independent Zimbabwe. The teenage years and the corresponding growth of political consciousness for our sample would mainly have begun after the war.

If this age pattern is replicated throughout the entire population of farm workers, the significance would be enormous. Without the same historical loyalty to ZANU PF, and showing signs of allegiance to the budding MDC, of which several farmers were prominent members, the younger farm worker population represented a growing threat to the ruling party. As will be discussed below, the population of farm workers was highly significant.

Statistical inferences in Reckless Tragedy: Irreversible? indicated that farm workers would have numbered at least 1.3 million people (i.e. at least 10 percent of the country’s population) and possibly as many as 1.9 million prior to the disruption post 2000. This suggests that the farm workers represented a very sizeable number of potential MDC votes.

The sample is mainly male, with 83% male and 17% female.

Gender                                     Number                         %

Female                                     29                                     17%

Male                                     138                                     83%

Total                                     167                                     100%

This gender disparity is not surprising, as the sample also reports that 90% of respondents were permanent workers on the farms. Other published research also shows that less than 10% of permanent workers on farms were women. As with the geographical spread, future research will seek to stratify sampling procedures to avoid bias.

Respondents stated that the average amount of time they had worked on the farm before their employment was terminated was 8.2 years. This suggests a moderate degree of labour mobility, as the average age of respondents was 39 years.

The table below shows the degree to which the sample is skewed towards both workers in authority and domestic workers on the farm. In reality, most farms would have had a considerably higher percentage of general hands than the 25% in our sample. This is because, as previously explained, sampling for some of these initial surveys was conducted through the contacts the farmer had maintained with his former employees. For obvious reasons, farmers were more likely to maintain contact with domestic workers and workers in positions of authority than with general hands.

163 respondents reported an average of 4.3 family members living in their household. Of these, an average of 1.4 family members also worked on the farm. These figures appear to relate well to those estimated by farmers in Reckless Tragedy: Irreversible? where 418 farmers estimated that 34,520 permanent workers lived with 156,911 family members, i.e. an average of 4.5 family members per household. Other studies, such as that conducted by the Zimbabwe Network for Informal Settlement Action (ZINISA) in 2000, estimate the number of dependants per worker at about 6.

The figures for the number of permanent and seasonal workers appear here to be overestimates, whilst the figure for farm compound population appears to be more accurate, when considered against, for example, the figures in Reckless Tragedy: Irreversible? Where respondents estimate the average size of their permanent and seasonal labour forces to be 83 and 80 respectively, and the average population of farm residents to be 375.

Origins, Nationality and Citizenship

Numerous questions were asked about the family origins, nationality and citizenship of farm workers in order to investigate widely held beliefs that many farm workers were of Malawian, Zambian or Mozambican origin. Firstly, a not insignificant proportion were born outside the borders of Zimbabwe:

Were you born in

Zimbabwe?                         Number                         %

No                                     14                                     9%

Yes                                     148                                     91%

Total                                     162                                     100 %

This already backs up contentions that there were a significant number of non-Zimbabweans within the ranks of the farm workers. However, when asked if they were Zimbabwean citizens, a greater percentage answered ‘no’ which shows that some workers, though born in Zimbabwe, are children of non-Zimbabweans.

Are you a

Zimbabwean Citizen?                         Number             %

No                                                 11                         15%

Yes                                                62                         85%

Total                                                 73                         100 %

Identity documents can sometimes be difficult to obtain in Zimbabwe, although our sample seemed unusually fortunate in this regard.

It is somewhat strange that 94% of the sample should have an ID whilst only 81% should have a birth certificate, as normally an ID can only be obtained after one has a birth certificate.

The authors suggest no explanation for this anomaly, other than the possibility of the loss, theft or destruction of the birth certificate document as it is more fragile than the metal ID card.

At any rate, it is interesting to note that 5% of the sample reports holding citizenship of a country other than Zimbabwe. This figure, when considered with the 15% who state they are not citizens of Zimbabwe, would appear to imply that there is at least some percentage (perhaps 10%) of farm workers who consider themselves to be stateless.

Are you a citizen of another country?             Number             %

No                                                             142                         95%

Yes                                                             8                         5%

Grand Total                                                 150                         100%

Of these eight respondents claiming citizenship of another country, four are Malawian, two are Mozambican and two are Zambian. This supports common assertions that significant proportions of farm workers come from these countries.

However, when asked whether the families of the respondents possessed Zimbabwean citizenship an even more interesting picture emerges:

Does your family have Zimbabwean Citizenship?             Number             %

No                                                                                     4                         20%

Yes                                                                                     16                         80%

Grand Total                                                                         20                         100%

Note here, that whilst the sample size in this table is significantly smaller than the other questions in this section, the table nonetheless suggests that a fairly significant proportion of farm workers who describe themselves as Zimbabwean are likely to have family ties to other countries. This hypothesis is entirely borne out by the results of the following table:

Nationality of Parents                         Number             %

Tanzania                                     1                         1%

Zambia                                                 10                         6%

Mixed                                                 22                         14%

Mozambique                                     28                         17%

Malawi                                                 32                         20%

Zimbabwe                                    68                         42%

Grand Total                                     161                         100%

This is a very significant finding. If only 42% of farm-workers describe both their parents as having been Zimbabwean, it is not surprising that ZANU PF, with its strongly Shona nationalist culture, should view this group as even more expendable than other members of the population, and treat them accordingly. It is quite extraordinary that so many farm workers should have parents who are not Zimbabweans, and this figure is significantly higher than other common estimates of ‘non-Zimbabweans’ present in the agricultural work force. It is possibly an anomaly of the small sample size, or of the sampling methodology, though no feasible explanation for this has been considered.

Of the 50 respondents who gave data about the arrival of their parents in Zimbabwe, the majority came during or after the Second World War, during Federation or in the first few years following UDI (1965).

All these figures together suggest an interesting scenario. It seems likely that a significant percentage of farm workers from the previous generation were originally from countries other than Zimbabwe. After migrating to Zimbabwe to find work, they had children who, as adults, continued to work on the farms, and who have now assimilated, or are in the process of assimilating, as “Zimbabweans”. Here it is helpful to note the parallels with the white commercial farmers, who have also been viewed as “foreign” and especially “British” despite, in most instances, a complete lack of rights to the citizenship of the UK or any country other than Zimbabwe. In the eyes of ZANU PF, some Zimbabweans are more Zimbabwean than others. It is the view of the authors of this report that the significant proportion of farm workers with historical family links to other countries has been one of the causes for the entire group of farm workers being treated as second class citizens, and has served as justification to their oppressors for their systematic disenfranchisement, exclusion and physical and psychological assault. Again, the parallels to white farmers are probably not coincidental.

The data in this section has proved somewhat fragmentary, and at times apparently contradictory, so it may be helpful to summarise our interpretation of it. Over the last 100 years, many farm workers migrated to Rhodesia/Zimbabwe from neighbouring countries, especially from Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia. These workers began the process of assimilating with the Zimbabwean workers found on the farms. Their children, born in Zimbabwe, became Zimbabwean citizens, but with cultural and ethnic ties to their parents’ countries of origin. It is a hypothesis of the authors that this “stigma” of not being a ‘true Zimbabwean’ was one of the causes, in addition to the obvious political subjugation, for the post-2000 ill-treatment, abuse and oppression of farm workers which this report describes.

When Farm Worker 1 was evicted from the farm he lost several documents: I would say that I lost [several documents including] my mother’s death certificate. Yes, my mother’s death certificate got lost which I was supposed to use to apply for an ID. I was born in this country but my parents are from Malawi.

Voting patterns

The next section was added relatively late in the survey design, so it only reflects the responses of 16 farm workers. However it is included because it suggests some interesting possibilities, pending further research.

If this pattern is replicated in the entire population, it may indeed prove to be hugely significant. Note this sample’s doubling of voter participation between 1995 and 2000, and again in 2002. This, in combination with the age data given earlier, suggests that the young farm workers, on average born in 1969, would attain the age of majority in 1987. However, their political participation only surged in 2000/2002 at the time the “Land Reform” was launched. This would support the contention that the growing political involvement of farm workers in opposition politics, specifically their support for the ‘No’ vote in the referendum and support for the MDC, directly resulted in the events of the “Land Reform” where, as we 6 2008 Harmonised Election 7 2008 Run-off Election know and will continue to make clear, hundreds of thousands of people were displaced, assaulted, tortured, etc. expressly because of their political affiliation. Once again, this was not Land Reform, but “Land Reform”, a political masquerade.

Also noteworthy in the above table is the fall-off in voter participation post 2005. This may be the result of intimidation, disillusionment or both. For example, when we asked respondents if they had been affected by Operation Mavoterapapi (“How did you vote?”), the military and paramilitary crackdown on the opposition in the wake of the lost 2008 Harmonised Election, no fewer than 75% of the 20 respondents responded positively. This suggests a reason why voter participation from our sample drops from 10 out of 16 for the Harmonised Election to 7 out of 16 for the Run-off.

                                                      Yes                         N=                         %

Were you affected by Operation Mavoterapapi?            15                         20                         75%

However, these figures, whilst suggestive, should not yet have too much weight placed on them. The research in this regard is ongoing.

Farm Worker 2 was interviewed in the middle of Operation Mavoterapapi and he described it as follows:

There was actually a meeting which was held yesterday and members of the army and the war veterans pitched some tents. There is a camp at the Country Club which belongs to Varungu where there is a Golf Course. And the war veterans and the soldiers are also camped by the hall in the high density area. They are saying that they will be operating from there going onto the farms. They are saying that they will be slaughtering 8 of [the farmer’s] beasts per day until they are finished. They want to slaughter them to eat whilst they will be at their bases. They are overseeing all the farms because the war veterans have moved to camp elsewhere. The DA and a senior police official went to the farm this morning when I came here. […] The people who are holding meetings in the farms are the soldiers who are rounding up people and giving them instructions not to vote for MDC. They are telling people that they will beat them thoroughly if they vote for MDC like what they did before. The soldiers have come here in connection with the elections and there is another group which is responsible for land. They are saying that they want to see where we will go when the whites leave. The group that is responsible for land is also involved in the elections. They are telling us to vote for ZANU-PF in the next elections. Varungu are at the wards

with the war veterans and soldiers as we speak.

Human Rights Violations experienced during “Land Reform”

Violations against workers

Respondents reported the following personal experiences of human rights violations.

Several results are extremely important here. Firstly, it should come as some surprise that any human rights violations at all should take place during an exercise purporting to be a socially just and equitable “Land Reform”. That they should be recorded here in such significant proportions poses difficult questions of the real motives behind this quasi-military exercise the Zimbabwean Government like to term the “Third Chimurenga”.

Secondly, and very significantly, the three major violations are all political violations. This backs up the similar results obtained when farmers were questioned about the experiences of their employees in Reckless Tragedy: Irreversible? Being Forced to Join ZANU-PF, Political Intimidation and Being Forced to Attend Political Meetings are reported on a massive scale (all by more than two-thirds of respondents). This indicates that the primary motivation of the “Land Reform” was to politically subjugate the rural population and quash any murmurings of opposition to ZANU PF.

The fourth highest violation, Torture, with 65%, deserves a word of explanation. The term torture in English has been translated into Shona as kushungurudzwa, but the Shona word has a broader meaning than the English word torture. Other translations of kushungurudzwa could include: severe ill-treatment or psychological torture. Note, however, that in the context of the “Land Reform”, all of these meanings would fit into the UN definition of torture, which states that an act of torture must encompass all of the following elements:

1. Severe pain and suffering, whether physical or mental;

2. Intentional infliction;

3. Infliction with a purpose;

4. Infliction by a State official or another acting with the acquiescence of the State.

The percentage of respondents reporting that they had received death threats (54%) is important, and should be read in conjunction with the number of respondents citing experience of murder within their family (2%), of murder of an employer (1%), and of murder of a fellow employee (10%). Murder was a very real possibility for those living on farms during “Land Reform”, and death threats were thus severely traumatising for the individuals concerned. This alone is a form of psychological torture.

Other forms of psychological torture include being forced to watch beatings (43%) and having one’s children forced to watch beatings (29%). This form of psychological warfare was a standard technique practised by guerrillas during the liberation war and was revived during “Land Reform” to instill obedience and terror in the population. Typically, a compulsory late night meeting (“pungwe”) would be called by the farm’s resident war veterans and ZANU PF youth militia. Failure to attend would result in severe punishment. At the meeting, farm workers would be forced to sing songs in support of ZANU PF, dance, chant slogans and affirm their loyalty to the party. Scapegoats, often branded as MDC supporters, would be chosen to receive public beatings. Sometimes fellow workers were forced to beat each other to demonstrate their loyalty to the ZANU-PF cause; the sample reports that 29% of respondents were forced to intimidate others. Often sleep deprivation would occur as pungwes would continue throughout the night. The enormous damage done to the sensitive mental state of children through personal experience of these late-night pungwes and the associated beatings is one of the many tragedies of recent Zimbabwean history.

It is disturbing that 44% of those surveyed reported that they themselves had been assaulted.

Let us remember that the population of farm workers was 1.8 million people. Whilst this study does not yet claim to be nationally representative, it will surely represent a huge number of people, several hundreds of thousands, who have been assaulted as a direct tactic in “Land Reform”. Of the sample, 11% of respondents report sustaining permanent injuries from assaults.

The role of the police should be mentioned here. 20% of respondents report being arrested without having a charge laid against them, and 13% report being detained illegally, i.e. for a period longer than 48 hours. These violations were committed by the State police force, the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP).

The 2% of respondents who reported murder and 2% reporting rape represent a relatively small proportion of our sample. However, the gravity of these crimes, and the huge size of the farm worker population, means that these figures should not be taken lightly. In addition, rape is traditionally accepted as hugely underreported in these kinds of surveys because of the nature of the crime and the stigma that attaches to it.

Also illuminating, when compared to the 67% of respondents who say they were forced to join ZANU-PF, is the 5% of farm workers who say they were forced to join the MDC. Later, when we consider the perpetrators of crimes, we will see that not a single respondent cites MDC members as perpetrators of violations against themselves, against their employer or against fellow employees, whereas 42%, 49% and 57% of respondents cite ZANU PF members as perpetrators for crimes against themselves, their employers and their fellow employees respectively. Those who insist on saying that there has been violence on both sides of the political divide are wrong. There is a stark qualitative and quantitative difference in the roles MDC and ZANU-PF have played in political violence during “Land Reform”. In almost all instances of political violence during “Land Reform”, perpetrators are either members of ZANU-PF, or allied in some other way to State power, and victims are either politically un-affiliated or members of the MDC.

These violations are all described in detail in the series of qualitative interviews from which the following extracts are taken:

Farm Worker 7 described how her house was burnt down after an assault and the difficulties of getting a police response or medical treatment:

My house at the farm was burnt down so I just sought a place for my kids to stay. There is nothing that I could do because all my belongings were gutted by fire. What happened is that they first beat me up and injured me in the process and they asked us to leave. We just moved a short distance away and on our return we discovered that they had burnt down the houses. They were saying that the country was not won using the pen; it was won using  the gun so we were accused of wanting to give away the country to the whites. We did not do anything. We were just accused of voting for MDC, quite a number of us were beaten up at the farm, the five of us. I do not even know where the MDC meetings are held. I do not know why these people thought that we were MDC members. I have four girls. The one is 22, the other 18, the other 13 and the last is this one who is 4 years old. Because of the beating I was injured around the eye area. They beat me with clubs. We reported the issue so that we could get help with medical attention but the police officers just came and they did not do anything at all. We reported at X police station. They did not give us a response, they just said that they had recorded the case and they now had it in their files. At the hospital I did not get any help either. They just gave me a prescription which I was not able to buy because my house had been burnt down. We lost some blankets, clothes; I and my kids do not have anything to wear right now, maize, plates, containers, sunflower seed and peanuts.

Farm Worker 11 described how he and some colleagues were tortured and then forced to move as the police refused to investigate their case:

They told us to go back home. I do not know where they got the youths, whether they were from X or from the Border Gezi camps, I have no idea. Then they sent them to our houses. They came to my house and asked me to come out and I complied and they said that they wanted to know what had happened to the things that had been stolen from the farm. I told them that I had no information regarding that. I told them that they could not ask me that information. They asked me why I didn’t know that some people had stolen some things and why I had helped the white man to move his belongings. And they asked why only the leaders had gone to help the white man pack. We told him that we were the ones who were closer to him, we stayed closer to him and we were the ones that were available since it was indicated that the house was wanted as a matter of urgency. We were then taken, all of us. It was me A, B was also there, I mentioned them by name, C was also taken , we were driving the tractors and the other one was driving the lorry and the other one was a manager. We were taken and we were made to lie on the ground with one with his head this side, another with his head this side and another with his head this side. And they told us to sleep on the ground. This happened at home in the evening. So we were made to make grids that they walked on top of as they did their toyi-toyi on top of us, on our backs. It was S and his youth who were doing this. There were quite a number of them. When it dawned to me that we were going to die unnecessarily I decided to go against the rules and quickly got up when it had dawned to me that I was going to be hurt because they were stepping on me. We were then beaten up with some knobkerries that they had when we rose from the ground. So when the others saw that I was being beaten up because I had risen from the ground they also got up because they were also in pain. They beat us all over, on the back, ha –a all over. Can you see that there are cracks here and there? [Indicates scars.] It is the whip that they used on me. I don’t know what it was like which caused all this. As they were beating me up I realized that there was nothing that I could do so I jumped over the security fence. I managed to escape, then we went to the police station and we briefed the police officers what had transpired. The police officers said “alright, stay here, so that we see who else comes” So D came, C came and we told them what had transpired and we slept in the cells at the police station. We woke up the next day and we waited. It was now 9 o’clock and nothing had been done and then we enquired about the progress. They told us their case was a difficult one because it was a political case. The police officer that I was talking to was named X. He was the leader. The other one was called Y. “By the way, we know who beat us up”, I told them. “And they are also known at this police station, they are always here with assault cases.” Then he said “ ha –a – a with such cases, you just have to see to it that you pack your belongings and seek an alternative place to stay.” Then we came back and we told the white man how the case was handled. I asked for the tractor and trailer so that I could load my belongings and leave the farm and the white man said “alright, go ahead, I hope they will not deny you since they are now claiming that the tractors now belong to them. I have no idea on where they got the information that they are the owners of both the farm and the tractors” I went to the farm and I spoke to the settlers and they gave me the go ahead to use the tractor and leave. They told me to pack all my belongings and leave for good since they did not want to see me again. He told me to leave together with “our” whites. I said all was well with me and I got the tractor and loaded all my belongings. I had a radio as we were loading, apparently my wife had left the farm earlier on, others were helping me with the loading. Either [war veterans] H, I or J took my radio and I never got it back. As you know, I had worked at the farm for 17 years, we used to get handsome bonuses hence I had quite a number of belongings, I had my wardrobes, etc. so those people who were outside helping me with the loading told C that if he tells on them that they had taken my radio they were going to beat him thoroughly such that he will not even be able to take belongings. I only discovered that my radio was missing later when I was now unloading. I questioned the whereabouts of my radio and C then explained to me what had become of my radio. I went to the police station when I came back to return the tractor and there I told Y about my missing radio. So it was either H, I or K had taken my radio. The police officer told me that there was nothing that they could do about anything relating to the farm invasions in the country; they could not get involved in those issues. I asked them if my radio belonged to the country. They agreed with me that the radio did not belong to the country and I said “so”? Then they told me that it was difficult to speak to the war veterans and they advised me to rest the case since I had managed to take all my other belongings. I totally lost my radio and I never saw it again. I stayed where I had moved to and only left when I was called to Harare.

Farm Worker 6 described a series of arson attacks by war veterans and the police response to these attacks:

I am one of the victims, my kitchen was burnt down and some windows of my house were smashed. A’s windows were smashed too. There was also B, C, D and another guy named E, let’s just say the whole compound, whose windows were smashed. They just used to smash all over. Several of my items were broken, some of them went missing. There is a bicycle that went missing, it was stolen, my sofas and other things which were in the kitchen were burnt, my clothes and my shoes were burnt. [They did this because] they were saying that we were refusing to vacate the farm so we were supporting Murungu, so they decided to burn down our things. So they just managed to burn down the kitchen and they fled. We were in the bedroom with my family. We just heard people shouting that the house was on fire. That’s when we went out and noticed that the kitchen was in flames. We could not save it because it was already [nearly] burnt down. In some cases there are quite a number of people who were injured because some of them were burnt; those who slept in the kitchens were burnt. For example, there is Elder F, he sustained burns with his two kids and there is also a chap named G who sustained burns on his hand. They were taken to hospital at Murungu’s expense, I am the one who actually drove them to hospital and brought them back. The police were called but they used to come after the perpetrators of violence had already left the scene. Sometimes they used to come two or three days after a case had been reported to them. They were not of any help because they just used to enquire about what had taken place and they would be told that there were some houses which were burnt down etc. They would then enquire about the whereabouts of the perpetrators of the crimes and we would tell them that they were at the base. They would go to the base but we never heard that anything happened to the wrong-doers, the perpetrators would just remain there living at the base. If G and his crew were called and questioned about it they would just deny it and the police just left it like that.

Respondent 9 was not a farm worker but a private guard providing security on the farm. When he attempted to intervene in the widely publicized murder of a farmer, the assailants took note of his identity and he was later found and assaulted.

A and myself were attacked in the beer hall. We arrived at the beer hall; we sat down and bought two beers. As we were sitting we were approached by two youths who grabbed our hands and said “these are the guys from X who came to our base to fight us on Y Farm”. At that moment there was nothing that we could do, they pulled and dragged us to where a meeting was being held. There were many people there at the time. When we got there we were asked to sit in the centre and there were plenty of people surrounding us. They asked us, “Since you were at Y Farm who had you come to fight?” The one who was speaking was the leader; they asked us again, “what was your purpose for visiting Y farm?” We told them that we had been sent by Murungu who had raised us on his radio so that we would help him as there was a thief in his home. They did not listen to my story. They insisted that the radio message was implicating them [in the farmer’s murder]. They further insisted that our mission was to fight the war vets. I tried to explain but I was told that this was not the time for any explanations. They then broke into song, shouting that these people must be beaten. We were asked to lie down on our bellies. One war veteran jumped and stamped on my back and I just fainted. A knows the name of this war vet. They then began to pour water on me thinking that I had died, I then regained my consciousness. I had fainted and while I was unconscious they beat up A with baton sticks and sticks as well as electrical flex. They then carried A and myself to a vehicle and drove us to their base. When we got to the base they did not stop there with us, but we stopped at the road side and four more people jumped into the vehicle. While we were at the roadside, they then began to beat us again. Some of us did not know what exactly was taking place. We were not released there and then; they kept us there for a while until they caught the others. They then put us in handcuffs and beat us again. There is a guy by the name of B who actually lost his hand; it had to be amputated at the hospital after the beating. He now has one arm. There was a guy called C; we used to work with C. C is the one who managed to escape out of all the people who were captured from our base. He climbed up a mountain. He realized that things were not in order when he went up the mountain because he could see everything that was happening downhill from the mountain top. So when they took me and A they left us at the base. We could not even get up, we were so thoroughly beaten we could not even walk on our own. We just lay there. We were left there and they took some of our colleagues were taken to the war veterans youth base. The war veterans had their base in Z. They also took our company car and they went with it. C then came down from the mountain and communicated with the farmers through the radio and informed them about what had happened; he also communicated with the police. So he communicated with the farmers and the farmers arrived at our base in a space of about two minutes in their open trucks and they took me and A to W Hospital. The police are the one that made a follow up of those who had been taken. As for what happened next we have no idea because we were already in hospital. A police report was taken when we were already in hospital. We were injured to the extent that we had to be quickly rushed to hospital; there was no time to go to the police for questioning because we were badly injured. I felt a severe pain in my chest. My chest was badly injured. They took an x-ray. My chest was not in good order; even now I cannot even carry something on top of my head because I begin to feel some pain in my chest. Even if I carry something light, I begin to feel pain in my chest. That pain is still there and I still feel some pain in my left hand. It’s not working as much as it used to in the past. I feel the pain if I carry something with my left hand and if it’s a cloudy day I also feel some pain.

I can’t even hoe with that hand in the same manner that I used to in the past. I can’t even carry something that is as heavy as 20 kg with that hand anymore. I have a medical report that has to do with the beatings that I was subjected to. When I was discharged from hospital I decided to resign from work because I was afraid of being murdered.

Farm Worker 11 was a manager and was forced to flee the scene of a mass assault in fear for his life:

We woke up and went to work. We heard the bell ringing around 8 in the morning. We had started working around 6 o’clock. We heard the bell ring, ngoh! ngoh! ngoh! And they were singing revolutionary songs. The war collaborators led the ringing of the bell. So they were coming from the eastern direction towards the west where we were. This is when they started singing revolutionary songs, and they would sing songs nominating individuals, discrediting me, “Down with X, he is forcing employees to work!” They were just singing revolutionary songs until they reached us and they questioned us as to why we had gone to work. They approached those employees who were working on the tobacco in the barns, you know, it was at that stage where it was being harvested from the fields. That is the place where they started beating up fellow employees. Some employees started running away; they jumped over the Durawall with a security fence coming towards us. We had no idea that some other settlers had hidden in ambush some distance in front of us. The settlers had circled us so that if employees tried to flee in whatever direction they failed because they had surrounded us, they took other fellow farm workers so that they could circle us. The other farm workers were from other surrounding farms. So we had no idea that they had encircled us. On the other hand, other fellow employees were approaching us and they were being beaten up. Some were being beaten by whips, and some were advancing carrying the knives that I referred to earlier on. Then we saw how some fellow employees were being beaten, and I said “Fellows, let’s run away”. There were also other settlers in the direction that we decided to head, there were also other settlers in the other direction that we wanted to head to and cross the river, you see. So we all then realized that there was no way out, we were surrounded by the settlers, and it was now every man for himself. The settlers had blocked all escape routes, they had surrounded us, they knew that employees were in the fields and they were going to flee in that direction of the farm from the fields with the intention of hiding in the thicker forests. There was a crowd with knobkerries in whatever direction that we tried to take because these settlers had surrounded us. I remember that this is what we decided to do. I acted as if I wanted to return to the fields and then I slid into the stream. There is a big stream with reeds. I jumped into the stream and swam then I hid among the reeds and I lay in the reeds. The aim of most of the settlers was to deal with me and my fellow foreman. They started searching all over for me in different directions but they passed me without noticing me. They went forward after passing me and were searching. I realized that I now had an opportunity after they had passed me, otherwise they could catch me as I hid in the reeds. I got out of the stream and ran to another farm called Y. There were no people at this farm as they were taken and they were amongst the gang that was hunting us down. So I fled and stayed where there were no people. Others were caught and beaten up. These people who were beaten up were there, we had fled. I bumped into another crew coming from another farm on my way back. Among the crew was A, another war veteran called B and C. These are the people who I briefed with regards to what had transpired. They said “now that you fled and left the kids fighting who do you think was going to stop them?” I said “I had no opportunity to make people stop fighting; I was now fleeing to save my dear life.” They said “ok, then go your way but we would like to have a word with you at Z where we are going to hold a big meeting on Friday.” These war veterans were rather tired from what they had been doing at another farm. Right, at around 4:30 I went with a bucket around the dam to the paddock area. I then gathered that people were actually being beaten by a crowd of youths right at my house as the youth, a large number of them were beating the drums. My family had also fled, they had left.

They were now gathering my chickens, ducks and rabbits. They had set up a fire and were now roasting these chickens as they sang revolutionary songs. My wives were lucky in that they managed to lock up the house and fled when they saw that things were not in good order anymore, they disappeared. So when they returned with the intention of looking for me in the house [they saw the commotion and remained at a safe distance]. The youths did not break into my house; I do not want to lie. They just gathered my livestock and roasted it as they sang revolutionary songs. So I sat at some distance away from them. I have no idea how my wives found out where I was sitting, perhaps they saw me. They came with the rest of my family and joined me where I was sitting and we just sat there together. Around 5 o’clock, 6 o’clock 7 o’clock, we just sat there, 8 o’clock in the evening we were still just sitting. There was nothing that we could do. We had no food; we had not eaten anything since 8 am. Our children were with us. So we then sat there with no other plan in mind. I then decided to leave where we were resting as it was in the forest and mosquitoes were starting to bite us. We then went into a ploughed field at the next farm and we stayed in this field, we did not light a fire. So the youth spent the whole night at my house, they did not see any one, the foremen and the mechanics had fled. But the other general hands and the likes of F were there. The drums were being played.

Some other people just ignored and fled. I assumed that the youth were now tired at dawn, around 5 o’clock, 6 o’clock, 7 o’clock but then they started gathering the chickens again, roasting them and eating in the morning and they finally left. We had now settled on a hill top where we could clearly see the view of what was transpiring at my homestead. We then saw that these youths had left. We first saw the white man coming on a motor bike and he turned at the boundary. We saw all this view from the hill. We then saw some white man called D removing the tractor that we had left in the fields; he took it to the workshop. We had left the tractor in the field just like that. My family and I were witnesses to this. My wife was the first to gather the courage to go back home. I tried to stop her fearing that she could be beaten up but she said “no, I am going home with my children” my other two daughters followed her home and opened the house and they observed. The youths had not touched anything in my house save for my livestock and some logs which they broke to make a fire for roasting the meat from my chickens.

Farm Worker 11 then described the meetings he was forced to attend:

We used to sing their songs together with them when they came for meetings. They used to round up people to attend meetings and this is when we were made to sing revolutionary songs together with them. “The Boers go your way, Boers what do you want in our country Zimbabwe, a country full of milk and honey.” These are the songs that were sung, “Down with this X,” they would call us by name by those who said “Tsvangirai, you will have the children murdered.” We did not even know what they meant by saying “Tsvangirai, you will have the children murdered.” They would also say the number of MDC supporters had ballooned at the farm. These are some of the first signs that we saw that indicated that things were changing in 2003.

Farm Worker 12 described how people attended political meetings through fear for their own personal safety:

People were not beaten up but they used to attend these meetings as a security measure and to make sure that nothing bad was said about you. It was a kind of protection from fear of being beaten up since at that time when people were beaten up and in the event that they reported the incident to the police the police was not of any help because they just used to say that they do not interfere in political related matters. So people just used to attend these meetings as a defence mechanism . . .

Farm Worker 15 described the nightly pungwes which took place:

The war veterans came in peace when they came to us the workers but the only Jambanja that was a problem is that they wanted us to attend their meetings every night. They would ask us to attend so that we could sing. We were made to sing liberation songs as I indicated earlier. We would sing and go back home when they were now tired. They would also instruct us that none of us was suppose to go to work the next day. We were labelled the British, Second British Farm Workers.

We the farm workers were labelled the Second and the whites were labelled the First. They were saying that it was our fault that the whites had not vacated the farms because we were still working for them. So we were labelled to be British and this is why only 1 out of 10 farm workers were given land. I think none of the farm workers who I worked with was given a piece of land. They promised us land and they took down the names of those who were interested in land, but at the end we were told that we were on the waiting list. They would say that they were waiting for land that was going to be made available in A. We would just be on the waiting list forever. The meetings were called after working hours, around 6:30 pm. We were just called to attend the meetings around that time. There was no fixed time that the meetings were supposed to end; it all depended on how tired the settlers were on that very day. We could go up to 11 pm – 12pm when they were not tired. We would be made to dance at the meetings.

When respondents were asked about the violations experienced by their fellow farm workers the following results were obtained:

The results are similar to what respondents described themselves as having experienced personally. However there are a few significant differences. The rates for murder and rape of 10% and 11% respectively are very high. The fact that 68% of respondents indicated that fellow employees were assaulted is also cause for concern. This indicates significant degrees of violence being employed on the farms for the purposes of political intimidation.

Note too that 38% of respondents reported that children on the farm were forced to watch beatings. This will have grave implications for the next generation of Zimbabweans, and their mental health.

When questioned about the experiences of their fellow employees, farm workers reported numerous examples from which the following instances are extracted:

Farm Worker 3 described a case of abduction and torture that took place on the farm:

I remember the old man who headed the cattle section was abducted for a week. He said he did not even know where they had taken him to because everything happened in the dark. They later just dumped him by the roadside. He said he was assaulted and tortured. His name was X. He was away for about a week. The case was reported but no action was taken. The police no longer cared about anything concerning the war vets.

Farm Worker 8 described some of the assaults on the farm:

They did not beat Murungu but they used to beat up the workers from the compound. The farm workers were beaten up, sometime it was because from what the workers said about their fellows to the settlers. They would say so and so does this and that to Murungu. So the settlers would take their victims to their base. If you were not convincing in answering their questions you would be beaten up. Yes they got beaten, the likes of A, B, C and D. They were beaten; they were beaten because they were the managers at the farm. So the farm invaders had a grudge with the managers. So if you as a manager said something or did something you could have a misunderstanding with a fellow worker. If a worker got overwhelmed by some tasks he would go and report to the settlers accusing the managers of abuse. The settlers would promise to take care of it. The individuals would be summoned by the youths after working hours and they would be beaten for abusing other farm workers. They usually used whips made from cattle hide and some fan belts. I personally did not face this problem, but my brother, E did. E was beaten up because of his brother, which is me. They were saying, “Your brother is a know-all. We tell him to go to the base and he just does as he pleases.” This happened at the beer hall, my brother answered back rudely to the settlers. The settlers took him to the base and he was beaten up by some four guys. The guys who beat him were F, G, H and I. They assaulted him with wire, with barbed wire, they beat him three times on his back and they also beat him on his face and his hands. He was hurt and he has some scars. E-e-h, Murungu then called the police. The police officers did not come... We did not get to know the reason why they did not come. Most of the times when the policemen were called they would say that they didn’t have a motor vehicle to use. This is what they used to say most of the time. But E was taken to the hospital in Z by Murungu. He was attended to and he came back. I am not so sure if he still has the medical records because quite a number of things were lost in the Jambanja. He may have lost them or something.

Farm Worker 22 described how vicious dogs belonging to an A2 settler killed two farm workers.

The dogs belonged to A. He had about 15 dogs. They used to bite people. There are people who were bitten last year and two of them died. They were bitten and torn and they died later. I don’t remember their names but they were men. If you were found in the citrus section the dogs would be let loose on you and they would bite and tear you up and you would die because there was no way that a person could survive that. It was not even talked about that there are people who were bitten by dogs at A’s. I heard that from my nephew, he is the one who used to work there because I had already left the place. This was not even publicized. The law was not being enforced because these deaths were not even publicized.

Violations against Farm Workers’ Employers

Respondents reported the following percentages of human rights violations experienced by their employers:

There are some interesting aspects to this chart. Note that in general, violation levels are significantly lower than those reported against farm workers. This coincides with the data reported by farmers in Reckless Tragedy: Irreversible?.

By a fairly significant margin the highest violation respondents reported their employers as having suffered is ‘torture’. This is followed by death threats, and whilst political violations still maintain high levels, they are not in the same realm as those reported against farm workers. This makes perfect sense if one accepts the thesis of the authors of this report, that the main purpose of “Land Reform” was the political subjugation of the farm workers.

Note, for example, that according to this data one was more likely to be assaulted if one was a worker (44%) than if one was a farmer (33%). This pattern is replicated for every single violation bar one: respondents reported that their employers were very slightly more likely to have experienced “Arrest without a Charge” (22%) than they were (20%). In all other cases respondents reported that they had experienced violations to higher, or much higher, degrees than their employers in every single category.

This is hugely significant. International media around the world focused on pictures of white farmers being attacked, murdered or evicted, whilst their workers were barely mentioned.

However, for every one white farmer there were over a hundred workers, each of whom, if our survey data is replicated across the population, suffered more violations of a worse nature than the employer did. Farm workers and their families represent some 12 – 16% of the total population of Zimbabwe. They should have been amongst the first in line for consideration in any genuinely well-intentioned land reform programme. Instead, they were subjected to a sustained and systematic psychological and physical assault, indicating a motive other than land reform.

Quantitatively, farm workers as a victim group outnumber farmers by a factor of 100 to 1.

Qualitatively, farm workers often suffered much worse assaults, and were indeed subjected to worse human rights violations, than their employers. However, every individual victim, whether employer or employee, is deserving of respect and full enjoyment of the right to justice.

Farm worker 4 described the abduction of the farmer and farm manager that took place on their farm:

There was a time when farmer X and the late farm manager named Y were taken to a place called Z. They both came back looking very sad. They did not disclose to us whether they had been beaten or not. We could see that they were very sad as the manager’s eyes were red, I am sure that he had been beaten up at Z because it was the settlers camp.

Farm Worker 5 described how the war veterans purposefully treated the livestock cruelly in order to lure the farmer back out to the farm:

A meeting was held on another day, I do not remember the exact day. We were asked to open the paddocks for cattle and sheep and the pigsties for the pigs. The war veterans asked us to do that. So I did not rise in the crowd because I had noticed that some other people were being beaten up so I decided to keep quiet and remain seated. This is when I was made to stand up and they asked me why I was refusing to stand up. I rose up and I was clapped on my face by some war veteran named X because I refused to stand up and go and mix up the animals. I didn’t do it because the animals were not supposed to be mixed together. The pigs, cattle and sheep were all mixed together; the chickens and the geese were also mixed together. Animals are not supposed to be mixed up. For example, the boars are not supposed to stay together, they cannot be mixed up; it’s not possible. These two boars fought and the two of them died after they had been mixed. So they called me when I was at my house and they asked me to skin the pigs. Varungu were here in Harare at that time. So I did not have the permission to slaughter the pigs from Varungu. So I refused to skin them and told the war veterans to leave them like that even if they were to rot until the owner saw them and he then gave me the go ahead to skin them and give them to the war veterans to eat. Some of the war veterans knew this rule of rearing animals, and some wanted to use that as a tactic to make Murungu come to the farm quickly. Murungu was no longer staying at the farm so the settlers said that if they mixed the animals Murungu was definitely going to quickly come to the farm. However, he did not manage to come. He later came with some police officers. What he did is that he phoned and he said that we were to leave the pigs like that and it didn’t matter if they were dead.

Farm Worker 6 described how his employer was physically assaulted on three separate occasions:

Yes there were incidents when [Murungu] was beaten up, he just heard the invaders saying “we do not want to see Murungu; he must leave for good together with his people.” The first time, Murungu left his house and went to the borehole. So when he went to the borehole to check it out, the war veterans followed him and beat him up and they questioned him why he was refusing to vacate the farm. They told him that the farm was no longer his because they had acquired the farm. There were quite a number of them; I think about 12 or 8. Some of them had knobkerries and some had rods. He was mostly injured on his back because they beat him more on his back.

The second time, they came and they got inside his security fence and called him. When they called him he came out and some of them attacked him saying “you are refusing to vacate this place so we are beating you” and they beat him up. Fortunately there were some other people who were inside the security fence so they are the ones who rushed to his rescue. The war veterans got scared and they ran away.

On the last incident they beat him up in the fields. He had gone to the fields to check on the employees who were working in the fields. They stopped him on his way back and told him that they wanted to kill him because he was refusing to vacate the farm. So they started beating him and he was not able to fight back.

Respondent 9, a security guard, described the murder of a white farmer which was widely reported at the time:

We once went to react at a farm named X Farm. We went to X with the intention of assisting after a white woman had called and told us that the yard was invaded by thieves. She wanted some assistance so she called and told us that there were some thieves who were in her garden. Our rule as the reaction team was that if anyone called and was in need of assistance we had to be at the place within five minutes. I am beginning to forget Murungu’s name but it was a woman who called because the husband had already been murdered. What happened is that this woman phoned us as her husband had been killed by party members, I don’t know if it was the war veterans or the Born Frees who had murdered him. We don’t know that but there were quite a number of people. So when we arrived at the farm we discovered that there were some war veterans who were there after we had seen them beating drums at Murungu’s main gate. We quickly realized that it was Jambanja and we decided to make a U-turn so that we could get away from Jambanja but the war veterans identified us as soon as we made the U-turn. They identified us because of the uniform that we were wearing and they also knew our car. We were 8 and there were quite a number of them, about 20 to 25 or 30. In our reaction team there was Constable A, B, C, D and . . . sorry I am beginning to forget the names. There was E also. We then saw the police vehicle coming which was behind us. So when the police vehicle saw us they flashed us and they asked us to go back to the scene. There were some black boots, police officers who are part of the police reaction team, who were in the car. We then went back together to the scene with the police. So when we got there the police started by silencing the mayhem which was there because the people were singing and beating drums. Then the youth started disappearing one by one from the scene when they saw that the police had come armed with baton sticks and had some tear gas. So when the police were putting the house in order, we took the opportunity to flee the scene after we had concluded that we could get into trouble if we remained at the scene. We were afraid because we had been told not to get involved in politics because we were just there to safeguard Varungu’s assets. Had Murungu phoned and told us that it was a political issue we would not even have reacted by going there. We would have just called the police to attend the scene. The Murungu had told us that the house had been broken into by thieves so she wanted protection. She knew that we would not have reacted had she told us the truth.

Later we learnt that war veterans wanted Murungu’s farm so when the war veterans got to the farm they beat him up until he died. We heard he was beaten up and he died on the spot. The wife had not yet noticed that her husband was dead because the husband was not killed in the yard. I think they forced their way and then she locked herself in the house. She only got out when the police officers came to the farm. The body was later found in the cave. This really affected us to the extent that we just wanted to resign because we were afraid to keep on working in that area because there was a risk that we could lose our lives anytime. We realized that if we kept on working in that area we could lose our lives or we could get hurt since we were based in the farms

Farm Worker 10 described an act of bravery on the part of the farmer:

X then mobilised everybody in the compound to go and bring down the fence, ordering the workers to be right at the forefront. X was one of the war veterans, and he ordered it with the youth militia. We were all rounded up but I did not want to go along with what the others wanted us to do to farmer A. My inner religious self just told me that I couldn’t take part in murder of my boss who had looked after us so well, so I was just lingering at the back of the crowd. They ordered us the farm workers to be at the front whilst they followed behind. They said it is us the farm workers who should face the farmer and do the actual killing while they played a background role. When the boss saw the crowd at his gate he realised that the situation was very serious. I was standing a bit far and my husband was somewhere even further, ready to run away because we were both very embarrassed by this awkward situation. I was surprised to see this other very tall woman who also worked with me in the main house, standing at the very front of the gate. I think that day the boss saw that he was facing imminent death but he displayed a lot of bravery this man A. He got into the house. His family snuck out through the back but he himself came out and went straight through the crowded gate on foot.

Right in front of the whole multitude of people. When he came out some people ran towards him wielding axes but nobody had the final guts to strike him. They were pushing and shoving closer and closer to him, many of them stumbling and falling over each other in a melee. He brushed through the axe-wielding crowd, rushing to his mother’s house nearby. People just waved the axes at him to no avail. Although we were blocking the gate he just shoved past. People rushed at him but nobody had the guts to kill him. That day the Murungu acted like a demented animal and just walked straight past the jeering crowd and went to his mother’s house without being harmed, but still the crowd just followed behind him shouting abuse and throwing axes and all sorts of things at him. He got into his mother’s homestead and stayed there.

Perpetrators of Violations

The true significance of the widespread and systematic violations against farm workers and farmers becomes clearer when one considers the perpetrators of these violations. The following graph shows the percentage of respondents citing particular perpetrators for violations against themselves, i.e. against individual farm workers.

Notice that nearly all of these perpetrators are connected to the State, either directly or indirectly. Respondents cited “War Veterans” most frequently (77%) as perpetrators of the violations they had experienced. This corroborates all first-hand narrative accounts of the violations perpetrated on the farms, which frequently state that one or two genuine War Veterans occupied the farms, normally accompanied by several party youths who were evidently far too young to have fought in the war. These youths are described above as “Border Gezi/Youth Militia” and are cited by 59% of farm workers in our sample. These farm occupiers were the perpetrators of the great majority of all violations perpetrated on the farms.

In addition, 11 out of 26 respondents (42%) cited ZANU-PF members as perpetrators, whereas 0 out of 21 (0%) cited MDC as perpetrators, the lowest of all perpetrator categories. Attempts to spread blame for political violence equally between ZANU PF and the MDC are clearly spurious.

Farm Worker 23 described the political allegiance of the perpetrators who committed violations on the farms:

The settlers were ZANU. They said so themselves at the various meetings that they convened and it was only the ZANU meetings where force would be used for us to attend. The MDC? A-a-ah they never did that. We were forced to buy ZANU party cards because we feared for our lives.

It is interesting to note that the next highest perpetrator recorded by our sample is Traditional Leaders with 40%. Since the traditional chiefs have been subject to ZANU-PF political interference, they thus formed part of the organisational chain employed by the Government to carry out “spontaneous” farm invasions.

The Zimbabwe Republic Police, the next State participant, will receive further attention in the next section of this report, but note here that the 26% of our sample citing the Uniformed Branch as perpetrators demonstrate categorically that this was a State-sanctioned onslaught.

This figure should be considered alongside the other branches of the ZRP who perpetrated violations, namely PISI (4%), CID (6%), Support Unit (8%), general “Police” (9%) and the Riot Squad (14%). Other uniformed forces who perpetrated violations include the Zimbabwe National Army (10%) and staff of the Department of National Parks and Wildlife (1%).

Significant too is the high level of Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) involvement. The fact that 13% of respondents report violations against them by the CIO further suggests the involvement of the State, but in a somewhat more sinister manner. Undercover CIO operatives went on to farms to engineer the systematic onslaught against farmers and farm workers, but the Government did not wish it to be known that these attacks were State driven. (Technically, the CIO does not exist anymore as such because it has been incorporated into the President’s Office, who were also reported as perpetrators by 6% of respondents.)

Individuals in positions of political authority, and supposed civil servants, were also frequently cited by respondents. For example, 16% of respondents cited MPs as having perpetrated violations against them. Councillors (14%), Provincial Governors (6%), Provincial Administrators (5%) and District Administrators (11%) are all present in large numbers, especially considering that these figures represent perpetrators of violations committed against the respondents themselves. Should these figures be replicated on a larger scale, it will be very disturbing if 1 in 10 farm workers say that the District Administrator personally perpetrated violations against them.

It is also very interesting that 15% of farm workers reported that their fellow workers were involved in committing violations against them. Whilst this is nowhere close to the involvement of war veterans and youth militia, it nonetheless requires some explanation. On many farms across the country, over their 20 years in power ZANU-PF had set up a semiformal political network, where a few select workers on farms formed a ZANU PF committee. Where this was not done, the war veterans and youth militia who invaded the farm would immediately set one up and recruit from farm workers sympathetic to ZANU PF. This minority of workers, often tempted by promises of personal gain, thereafter perpetrated violations against their employers and their fellow workers.

Farm Worker 24 described being severely beaten by the Presidential Guards, specifically because he was a supporter of the MDC:

There was violence after Varungu had vacated the farm and moved to Harare. I remained behind at the farm and I was using the lorry and at that time I was now working in X together with A. I was working for [a donor agency]. I was now employed elsewhere. So we used to work for about 21 days a month in X. We had got permission to use Murungu’s lorry. What happened is that we used to work for 21 days and we would be off duty for 7 days and we would come back home. What happened is that we were off duty and we had come home. We were at the workshop welding a broken trailer and then suddenly a Land Cruiser came to the farm. It was a Zimbabwe National Army Land Cruiser. It went and parked in the compound and they stood right in the middle of the compound armed with AK47 rifles.

They were Presidential Guards; there were the 10 of them. I was in the workshop and I just saw them, all over the compound. I didn’t know what they wanted because they went to the store keepers’ house. When Varungu vacated the farm they left everything that had to do with the store in the storekeeper’s hands to use for his own personal use. The store-keeper was not around when they came. The shepherds who were responsible for the sheep were given the sheep for personal use when Murungu vacated the farm. The person who was responsible for looking after the cattle and the one who was responsible for milking the cows were given the cattle and cows for personal use and the store was given to the storekeeper. So I just assumed that they wanted to see the storekeeper when I saw the car parked at the storekeeper’s house. What happened when I was busy welding is that the Presidential Guards came and asked to see the driver. There was a chap who suspected that the driver that they wanted to see was me so he came round the workshop with the intention of tipping me off because he knew that I was in the workshop where I was busy welding. I at the same time had run out of welding rods so I got out of the workshop and headed for A’s house to ask for some more welding rods. I got to A’s house where he was busy shelling the maize. So I was already out of the workshop and I was at A’s house by the time that chap got into the workshop to tip me off. So when I got to A’s house one of the Presidential Guards who was armed with a gun arrived at the same time as me and he told me that he was looking for the driver. He asked for my name and I told him. He was holding a paper with a list of names. I also told him that I was the driver. He asked me to follow him because they were looking for me because I was a member of the MDC. He dragged me and then he asked if A was the one who was shelling the maize. When A heard his name being asked for he said no he wasn’t the one but rather he was B. The Presidential Guard argued with him and insisted that he was A and A also argued and insisted that his surname was B. They asked him to come along. They grabbed us both and then we got to a place where people were drinking beer and they made us lie on the ground and they started beating us up. It was at some other guy’s house.

They started beating us up and my colleague cried and I assumed that he was going to die on the spot. They used sticks like the ones that are used as fire wood. We were beaten up and the sticks were breaking. I was wearing a dust coat and I was asked to take it off and I was made to lie on the ground. They beat us up on our backs. They grabbed A and dragged him to where the people were drinking beer and they asked people about his surname. Some of the people supported that his surname was A but A insisted that his surname was B. The people also insisted that his surname was A and he insisted that it was B and they kept on bashing him. In reality, he used both surnames, A and B, but he was just afraid to own up as A. He was afraid since these guys were armed with rifles, so he was afraid that they were probably going to murder him. They accused us of being members of the MDC and I asked them why they were beating us up. Most people fled the compound when we were being beaten up because they were afraid that they could also be beaten. But they just beat up the two of us because most of the people that they were looking for had fled. They got into the car and drove off after they had finished beating us up. They came back three days after the day that they had beaten us up. It happened in 2003. We were beaten so badly on our backs that one would dread looking at them. You know when one is beaten up with a sjambok on their back, it will be marred by lines and it will be red with clotted blood. Our backs were sore such that it was even difficult for us to sit down. There was a lorry that belonged to [the farmer] and A and I decided to go to the clinic that night, on the very day that we were beaten up, soon after we had been bashed. We went to the clinic and we saw [a nurse] and we showed her our scars and she couldn’t help it and she started crying. On the third day those same Presidential Guards returned and this time they came they beat up a guy named C. The same people came back and they said that they were looking for C and they got him and they beat him up. They also beat up his older brother named D. They said that they were MDC supporters.

Farm Worker 25 described how the groups of war veterans were made up of many unwilling conscripts:

The real war veterans who we didn’t know, the ones that we assumed to be war veterans, there were about 20 of them, but they also came with the youths, some youngsters and some elderly people and they all claimed to be war veterans. There were some people that we were familiar with in that crowd who we knew very well and we knew that they were not war veterans. We later bumped into those people and asked them why they came to the farm claiming to be war veterans and they would tell you that they were forced to do it…

Farm Worker 8 described the political affiliation of the war veterans:

After three days they wanted to access the employees’ brains, the workers, as to where they stood. They started calling us one by one to their base at the classrooms. They would ask us different questions. I was once taken to the classroom where I was asked questions about politics. This is because they thought the farm workers were on Murungu’s side so they did not trust opposition party supporters. So they wanted to know if Murungu supported the opposition party or the Government. They asked me, since I was a senior at the farm, which political party I supported between the ruling ZANU-PF and the opposition MDC. I told them that I could not tell them the political party that I supported because it was my secret. They then assumed that I was in opposition and they almost wanted to assault me but they did not beat me up. This is because I was very argumentative such that they did not manage to beat me up. I did not look as if I was afraid. Most of the time if you show that you are terrified you are likely to be beaten up. If you are not scared you do not get beaten up.

Farm Worker 11 also described the political allegiances of the perpetrators:

So you would hear songs discrediting other people, especially myself, they used to say, “down with X, [farmer] Y’s colleague”. This was because I was Y’s right hand man. We used to organize work schedules with the white man in his office, planning our work schedules every season. We would then meet with the foreman and inform him of our plans. So it was after planning work schedules that they used to discredit me because I was Y’s colleague because ‘they are always together planning in the office’. This is when they started songs to discredit me .They then started researching finding out those who were not ZANU-PF card holders at the farm. They found out that the whole of top management were not ZANU-PF card holders. The chairmen were sent to find out about this, those chairmen that I talked about earlier. They were sent by ZANU-PF supporters from their province where they came from. They came to find out about card holders and they would question those of us who were not card holders why we didn’t want to apply for cards. We would then answer them that no one is forced to be a card holder; you are not supposed to be forced into being a card holder. So these chairmen would take up the matter further up. Now when they held big rallies they would discuss those who were not card holders at [farm] A, accusing them of being auxiliary forces and of being MDC supporters, including at B farm which was close to our farm, as well as at C, with the chairmen. This is when they started labelling us to be MDC supporters, from being Muzorewa’s auxiliary forces to being MDC supporters. At that stage we did not know anything about MDC, we had not even heard about them before; we did not know that such a party existed. I was labelled to be a ZAPU supporter; they labelled me to be Dongo’s boyfriend. We were labelled to be MDC supporters, this was now the issue, we were labelled to be MDC supporters. We were asked to attend a big rally that was held in D in 2001, on the 11, actually in June. I did not want to attend this rally because I had no reason to attend so I did not attend. People were forced to attend, no one was supposed to be absent at this meeting. It was not a work day; it was on a Saturday afternoon. The youths made a follow up of those who did not want to attend, they made rounds with a list of names per farm, finding out whether or not we had attended the meetings. So these youths would report on who they had seen, I for one was nominated that they had seen me, we saw P who was a senior, who was the deputy head foreman , senior foreman, we saw P, we saw Q, we saw R, they were just seated and some were at the dam fishing. I for one was at the office during that time. Our names were listed down and we were labelled to be MDC supporters. So when they came to take over the farms, we just heard of the places where the farms were taken over. So these chairmen were crossing their fingers for our farm to be acquired because they labelled us MDC supporters, white men’s colleagues.

If we consider the violations against their fellow farm workers, respondents report the following perpetrators:

As expected the pattern is largely similar to that of violations perpetrated against respondents themselves. The rank order remains relatively stable. Considering perpetrators of violations against their employers, the following responses are given:

Again, the similarity is striking and supports the thesis that farmers and farm workers were viewed by the State as forming one constituency and treated as such. The similarity of these three graphs encourages a view of the invasions as operating in a non-random, systematic way, and thus as centrally organised and driven. These patterns, when read in conjunction with the actual identities of the perpetrators occurring in the patterns, provide further evidence of State complicity and involvement in the series of human rights violations under the guise of “Land Reform”.

Farm workers maintain strong ties with their farms after eviction, and almost all are able to give information on current occupants.

Do you know the person who occupies the farm now?            Number            %

Yes                                                                                     148                         97%

No                                                                                     4                         3%

Grand Total                                                                         152                         100%

Even though 82% of the sample are no longer employed on the farm they are still very aware of the identity of the current occupant. This is very significant, especially when one considers the following question:

Was this person involved in Jambanja?                         Number             %

Yes                                                                         97                         65%

No                                                                         52                         35%

Grand Total                                                             149                         100%

If two thirds of the current occupiers were themselves perpetrators of violent crimes, this has severe consequences for the idea, contained in the September 16 2008 political agreement between ZANU PF and MDC, that one can simply ignore the identity of the current occupants of farms and move forward with no reference to the manner in which those farms were occupied. This strong ZANU-PF network of violent farm occupiers provides an excellent platform from which events on the farms can be observed and controlled.

The Police

Warranting a section of their own, the police played a crucial role in the onslaught against farm workers and farmers. In addition to the basic questions above about the police as direct perpetrators of violations, respondents were also asked questions about the willingness of the

police to carry out their constitutional duty. It is here that it becomes apparent the police had instructions from persons in Government to keep their distance from the crimes committed on the farms.

Were the police ever called for assistance?

Yes             77%

No             23%

Over three-quarters of respondents called the police for assistance. However, less than half reported that the police had been helpful on even one occasion.

Were they helpful?

Yes             47%

No            53%

It is expected that respondents would have a worse knowledge of the role of the police than their employers as farm workers were generally not involved in contacting the police or dealing directly with them. However, the data above shows that farm workers were aware that, despite fairly frequent requests for police assistance, this was only forthcoming less than half the time.

                        No of times police called             No of times police helpful

Total                         203                                                             82

%                         100                                                             40

It is very significant that the police were helpful only 40% of the time. It is this fact that no doubt reduced the number of times violations were reported to the police, as there was limited expectation of police response. However, when more personal questions are asked of respondents about their own dealings with the police, the picture steadily deteriorates.

Did you ever report to the police?

Yes             46%

No             54%

Almost half the respondents in our sample reported to the police, itself a severe indictment of the level of human rights violations occurring on the farms, but only 22% were assisted.

Were you assisted when you reported to the police?

Yes             22%

No             78%

These first-hand experiences are likely to be considerably more accurate than estimates of the employer’s attempts to get police involvement. As time went by, only 37% of the sample reported that the police continued to provide assistance of any form whatsoever.

The police themselves were under a considerable amount of internal pressure to obey the illegal commands of their superiors. This meant that any show of professionalism or nonpartisan law enforcement was heavily reprimanded.

Did you ever see police intimidated?

Yes             27%

No             73%

The facts that 27% of the sample reported that they themselves witnessed (public) police intimidation and that 20% of the sample said that helpful police were transferred to new posts, suggest the kinds of internal pressure policemen were under to act unconstitutionally, irresponsibly and illegally.

Were helpful police transferred?

Yes             20%

No             80%

When asked what reasons the police gave for their refusal to react to dangerous and volatile situations, respondents gave the following answers:

It is well known from the companion reports to the present one that the police often refused to involve themselves in violent situations on the farms because, they would say, it was a “political matter”. It is nonetheless interesting that they should have been so candid about their reason for refusing to react. After all, it would have been fairly credible for them to have claimed that they lacked the resources, a claim the above chart shows they used quite infrequently. The vast difference between the “political matter” excuse and the others, shows the extent to which the hands of the ordinary policemen were tied by political orders from high ranking officers in the ZRP. It is also to be noted that these excuses for a failure to react were only given when the victims were farm workers or farmers. When anything happened to a War Veteran or a member of the Youth Militia, the police were very quick to investigate and charge the guilty party.

This partisan law enforcement is yet another demonstration of the State’s responsibility for the violations committed during “Land Reform”. This can be demonstrated by the number of farm worker respondents who were themselves arrested: 23%. If one out of every four farm workers were arrested by the police, most usually because they approached the police to report political violence, again the role of the police in hounding any opposition to ZANU PF becomes clear. For example, a further question asked of farm workers was “Were the police impartial when you were arrested?” which was answered “no” by 70% of respondents.

Farm Worker 19 described police reaction when he was badly assaulted:

After that the settlers took me to attend a meeting at a place called A. They were just discussing the land issue at this meeting. We were accused of supporting the whites at this meeting. They said “you are still supporting Varungu, all the farm workers you are supporting Varungu. You do not want us to take over the land so you are the reason why Varungu are not vacating the farms so you are going to suffer for that.” So we were beaten up. We were made to lie on the lawns and we were beaten up with some baton sticks. They used my baton stick to beat me up, I had a baton stick since I was a guard, they just took me to the meeting with the things that I had on me. So they used my baton stick to beat me up. I was made to lie on my tummy. I was injured. I called the police; the Member-in-Charge is the one who came on that day. From A police station, his name was X. He arrived and he spoke to me, he asked me to explain everything. I tried explaining to him but I was full of anger so I was explaining to him with lots of bitterness. He advised me to calm down and speak to him calmly. I explained to him everything that had happened. Yes, they were able to arrest the people who had beaten me up on that day and they went with them to A Police Station. There were three of them, the ones who really beat me up. But the people who beat me up did not stay in police custody for several days. I think they were released the following day, I heard that they were released because they were based at A where they held their meetings. That was their base. I heard that they had been released which meant that no meaningful judgment had been passed to them because if they had been judged properly they were not supposed to have been released the next day considering how much they had beaten me up. Even if I had returned to the police station, there are times when we used to call them when we were having problems but they were simply not bothered. “Do what they want you to do”; they would advise us to do what the war veterans wanted us to do. We all thought that the police were working together with the war veterans, calling them to help with a case did not yield much results.

Farm Worker 18 described how the police also feared the war veterans who had been given free rein on the farms:

[War veteran] A used to upset the employees on a daily basis. He used to beat up the employees every day. These cases were reported to the police but they used to say that they could not help because they were matters that were related to politics. They were officers from J. There was F and G. They were actually afraid of the situation because A had become well known in the area for moving around with a gun so he also used to intimidate the police officers as well.

Farm Worker 2 reported on the activities of the police following a political beating:

I got arrested. What happened is that I went to town and I passed through ZANU-PF offices in A at A Hotel. When I was passing through they called me, they said “[Farmer] X’s employee may you please come here.” I didn’t know the reason why they were calling me; they did not say why they were calling me. They just started beating me up. It was some ZANU PF youths. I can remember Y; some of them who were the leaders are now dead. There was Z; I have forgotten the other names.

So at the office I just thought that nothing was going to happen to me since they knew me very well. Then they accused me of supporting MDC and I told them that it is a party that is there. There were some war veterans amongst them and one of them suggested that they leave me alone. The war veterans got me into their car and they took me home at the farm to search my house

and they took the MDC T-shirts that I had. They also took some party books, the MDC manifesto and I just left them and they went with the things. The matter was taken to the police but it just died a natural death. They beat me up because I support MDC. They used whatever they wanted, some of them beat me up with clubs, some of them hit my head with bricks. They beat me up as they pleased until I sustained some injuries and was admitted to hospital. I left the hospital where I wasn’t treated very well and I went to Harare to B were I was assisted with medical treatment. I informed the police about the assault, but they did not do anything about it. No one, not one of them was arrested. I sometimes bump into [the perpetrators]. I just say to myself that it was their time, my turn will come soon. The police would not give me a report, they refused. MDC took me to B, I went there and I was assigned a doctor who treated me and I used to come for reviews. I was badly injured when I was beaten up so my blood pressure went up so I was told to visit the doctor every month. So I used to come and have my blood pressure checked so the doctor decided to give me a referral letter so that I could be treated from here. So it was becoming difficult for me to keep on coming here, the bus fare was becoming too expensive for me because the fares kept on going up. What I do is that if I bump into a doctor that I know I ask for the BP tablets but if I don’t I can even go for two months without any tablets. My wife was not injured, she was also beaten but they did not injure her. I am the one who was injured to the extent that I had to go to hospital. My health is not good. There is a time when I feel some pain or suffer from insomnia. I sometimes think that all this is because of the brutal beatings that I went through; there are some diseases that just emanate without you knowing where they will be coming from. It’s just that sometimes you don’t know where some of these things come from. The war veterans, the youths and the police are working in cahoots because they are at the same camp right now. There is nowhere that you can report any assaults that are linked to politics. The problem is that if ZANU PF members commit crimes they are left alone and they are not arrested but if MDC members commit crimes they get arrested and get jailed. That is what the problem is right now.

Farm Worker 23 is still perplexed by the police refusal to react after his assault:

Up to now I don’t understand the treatment that I got from the police. I think they knew the perpetrators very well. They asked me what I wanted and I showed them the letter (they even asked me if I was the one who had been beaten and I confirmed.) They read it and told me to come back the following day. I said I would and the following day I came back but they said they had lost the letter. I persisted until they asked me the name of the officer who took the letter. I informed them that the officer had refused to give his name. So in the end that letter was never found but still I managed to lodge a report that I had been assaulted and that I lost $180.00 in the ensuing melee. Eventually I did not pursue the case further because I clearly saw that it was a waste of time. I still keep some documents from the hospital though.

Statutory Instrument 6 of 2002

In 2002, Statutory Instrument 6 [S.I.6/02] set out the regulations in terms of which farmers whose land had been acquired by the Government should pay out their workers for being made redundant. These financial packages went considerably beyond the standard retrenchment regulations and were instigated by Government for two reasons.

Firstly, at the time of instituting the severance packages in 2002, the State still wished to appear publicly benevolent towards the farm workers it was at the same time having beaten and tortured. Secondly, by buying temporary support from farm workers, the State hoped to drive a wedge between workers and employer and drive the employer from the property.

This would leave the farm open to a new occupier from within the ZANU PF patronage structures, who would be in a strong position to quash any further opposition politics. Most farmers paid the S.I.6/02 packages, which represented large sums of money and absorbed a vast proportion of the farmer’s liquid assets. However, some farmers argued that they would pay their workers compensation as and when they themselves received compensation from the Government for the loss of their farms, for which, of course, they are still waiting.

In our sample, 67% of respondents reported having received their S.I.6/02 packages, and of those who received it, 93% say they received the entire sum.

In the majority of cases where packages were not paid, the farmer was summarily evicted. Some workers did not qualify for these packages because they were temporary or casual employees. In some cases the farmer left voluntarily without paying the packages, or refused to pay them. Farmers themselves are still awaiting compensation from the Government for their losses.

Perhaps surprisingly, when asked who informed the respondents about the S.I.6/02 package the most frequent response was the farmer himself, who was responsible for informing one out of two workers about this package. This does not entirely fit in with the idea of the racist farmer determined to avoid any social responsibilities towards his employees. Indeed, the farmer outperformed GAPWUZ itself in this regard.

It is also significant that after receiving the package, almost half of respondents left the farm. This probably represents a mixture of a small portion of voluntary displacements and a larger portion of forced evictions. At any rate, large numbers of people left the farms, which is always significant when considering the purported aim of “Land Reform” as being returning

land to the people and people to the land.

Did you continue to live on the farm after receiving the package?

No             47%

Yes             53%

In some cases, farm workers were forced to give a portion of their package to the invading War Veterans and Youth Militia who had violently coerced the farmer into paying out the package. Farmers resisted this, often because they felt that paying out the S.I.6/02 package indicated a willingness to leave the farm, which would be further exploited by the invaders. One in five farm workers reported that some portion of their S.I.6/02 package was extorted from them.

Were you extorted?

No             80%

Yes             20%

Eviction

The next step for most farms was that the farmer would be illegally evicted, often at the direct instruction of the police, who threatened jail sentences for farmers who refused to leave. These illegal orders from the police are further examples of their involvement, direct and indirect, in the assault on farmers and workers.

Once the farmer was evicted, however, the lives of the workers steadily deteriorated. Firstly, the majority of former farm workers left the farms, either voluntarily or involuntarily.

Are you still living on the farm?             Number             %

Yes                                                             55                         34%

No                                                             108                         66%

Grand Total                                                 163                         100%

With only one worker in three from our sample still living on the farms, the question arises as to the whereabouts of the other two-thirds. Later in the survey design, when we added in the question on whether or not this displacement from the farm was voluntary, we got the following responses:

Were you evicted from the farm?             Number             %

Yes                                                             37                         71%

No                                                             15                         29%

Grand Total                                                 52                         100%

Farm Worker 13 was evicted explicitly because of his political affiliation:

We were evicted from the farm by some ZANU PF youths and war veterans because they are accusing us of being members of the MDC. I don’t know where they got that from because when one is working it doesn’t matter if they are a member of the MDC or a member of ZANU PF. One will be working in order to earn a living, in order to be able to send their kids to school.

The large proportion of farm workers evicted summarily is entirely consistent with other evidence of the lack of humanity of the perpetrators of these violations.

If you were evicted did you get given notice?             Number             %

No                                                                         34                         92%

Yes                                                                         3                         8%

Grand Total                                                             37                         100%

Farm Worker 12, luckier than many, was evicted with seven days notice:

The settlers addressed a meeting and told the people that the person that they used to work for was no longer there so it was only proper for us to vacate the farm since there was no more place for us and since we didn’t have land. They said that even if we go to the Ministry of Lands we would be told that they don’t know us because we were not allocated land and our employer was no longer there. They told us that they could no longer keep us at the farm since they didn’t have space for us. They advised us that it was best if we packed our belongings and vacated the farm. I left the farm before the farmer did because I just realized that there was a possibility that violence could erupt or that people would beat each other up and injure themselves over petty issues and I thought that it was best that I vacate the farm. That is the reason why I left, we had been given seven days notice in which to vacate the farm. I managed to move my belongings because I was given a lorry by Murungu to help me move my belongings. So those who were going in the same direction were given a lorry to move their belongings and each one was dropped off at their final destination.

Because 92% of those evicted had not been given notice, it is hardly surprising that they should have experienced difficulty in finding even a temporary place to stay.

Did you have anywhere to go after your eviction?             Number             %

No                                                                                     33                         80%

Yes                                                                                     8                         20%

Grand Total                                                                         41                         100%

Farm Worker 14 recorded another instance of summary eviction, where he and his family were abandoned on the roadside:

I was evicted from the farm at night. I was claiming my money. I had worked for [the settler] for three months without being remunerated and then I started demanding my money and then they decided that I was too clever and I was a bad influence on the rest of the employees. They didn’t like clever people. We realized that the situation was getting out of hand when we went for three months without remuneration and then we confronted them and we started having arguments with them so that they could pay us the money that we had already worked for. We used to water the wheat for them and the onions that they had raided from Murungu. They got some yields but they wanted to pay our salaries at a later date when the money would not have any purchasing power anymore. We could not refer our situation to the trade unions at that time because we were just evicted without notice. We were just dropped at the turn off, at that junction, which is where we were dropped with our property. It was during the rainy season and you could see for yourself that it was better to plan other things than pursue that issue because if the Government and the police knew that such things were happening and were not doing anything about it, how could you pursue it on your own? I spent it must have been two days on the roadside. I lost my drums and my new 20 litre containers that I lost at the farm. I was affected by the eviction because if one is threatened, you as the parent and the kids too will always remember such incidents because such incidents will always be vivid in your brain, such things will never fade from your memory. Something that is in your memory can last for even 50 years because you will have been disturbed.

Farm Worker 8 described the summary evictions of the entire labour forces of two neighbouring farms:

The workers were actually surprised when they were told that it was now the end and the war vets did not want to see them in the compound anymore because they were on Murungu’s side. The war vets turned against the workers at that very moment and all the promises that the workers were going to be given land faded at that very moment. We did not even know where to go since we did not even have some where to go. We were now in trouble since we did not have any where to go. We remained in our houses in the compound hoping that the settlers were going to take pity on us so that we could have ample time to plan on where we were going to go. They then came and forcefully removed the workers from the compound houses, using Jambanja and they were checking the houses. They checked house to house and they asked us to move our belongings out of the houses. We moved our belongings out of the houses and the youths were instructed to assist us to ferry our belongings to the main road. There was a main road close to the farm. They also went to the next farm and they did the same thing until they had finished evicting all the farm workers from the houses. All the farm workers were all now gathered at the main road. The war vets said to us “you have been given money so you can hire motor vehicles and go where ever you want to go as long as you are not at the farm for we never want to see you at the farm anymore , save for A whom we have given land and B. These are the only workers that we want to see, as for the rest please leave.” So we were gathered at the road with the women and children. It was during the school term such we had to temporarily stop the children from going to school. The school children had to stop going to school. For us to move from there.... I personally spent five days by that road side because I was one person who was used to the farm life so. . . It was during the cold season, just after August. It will not be hot yet in August. It was still cold. So I spent five days on the road side. We lit a fire and we would cook some food that we had brought from the compound. We cooked and ate by the road side. Some who had their belongings looked for scotch carts. There were some who had rural homes nearby, they looked for scotch carts to hire and their belongings were ferried by the scotch carts and they paid high hiring fees. This was because these people who were hiring their scotch carts out knew that the farm workers had been given some money so they were charging as they pleased and we had no option since we wanted our belongings to be moved to wherever we were going. That is how we moved. I didn’t even know where to start from. It just crossed my mind that I had to get into the reserves which were nearby. I then got into the nearby reserves and I spoke to the headman of that area. I explained the situation to him and he said that it was not a problem at all since there were some vacant places in the area. He said that I could get two acres were I could stay and farm but I had to pay some money. During those days the amount of money was quite a lot. I paid $5 000.00 for the two acres. Paying was not a problem since I had been paid my terminal benefits the S.I.6 pack. I paid the $5 000 and I was given a place to stay and I paid the money. Plus I had asked for a plastic from Murungu and he gave me and I used that plastic for shelter.

It has been stated elsewhere in this report, but it is worth remembering, that the large proportion of farm workers of foreign extraction had no traditional rural home to go to. A small percentage of farm workers are still working on the farm:

Are you employed there?            Number            %

No                                                105                         82%

Yes                                                 23                         18%

Grand Total                                     128                         100%

With only 18% of the sample reporting that they are still working on the farm, it is evident that the “Land Reform” programme has had deleterious effects on the employment of farm workers. With a working population of some 350,000 permanent agricultural workers in Zimbabwe, these results, if replicated on a larger scale, would reveal a large number of displaced workers.

Let us remember too, that farm workers were not beneficiaries of the “Land Reform”. If we consider the position of farm workers with regard to the allocation of A1 settler plots, the following results are obtained:

Are there any workers who got plots?             Number             %

Yes                                                             8                         11%

No                                                             66                         89%

Grand Total                                                 74                         100%

It should immediately be noted that the above table does not refer to the percentage of farm workers who were given land; rather it refers to the percentage of respondents saying that any workers at all were given even a single plot on their farms. This is an important distinction. In effect it says that 9 out of 10 farm workers will tell you that none of the 150 odd employees on their farm was allocated any land at all. 1 out of 10 says at least one person from the farm was allocated land, but our figures do not allow us to calculate the exact number. GAPWUZ statistics show that less than 1% of farm workers were allocated land, so Farm Worker 15’s depiction of 0% of farm workers being allocated land is not bitter hyperbole.

Farm Worker 15 described his resentment at not being allocated land:

What I would like you to know is that yes, the farms were taken from the whites; if the resettlement programme was meant to benefit everyone I am sure everyone would have been given the land. How come the farm workers were not given land? But I am also black and it was said that the land was to be given to their rightful owners. My query is that how come the farm workers were not given land? Especially us. I told you my job title, we are the ones who had a 0% chance of getting land because we were said to be close to Murungu and they said that we knew everything that he did. We were suspected to be the biggest sell-outs.

Farm Worker 8 described the small number of workers allocated plots:

Two out of the 350 employees were apportioned pieces of land. There was one worker called A. He got a piece of land because he was on the settlers’ side. Such that he used to attend all the meetings, he ingratiated himself with them so that he could get land. That is what happened.

Demographic changes caused by “Land Reform”

As far as demographic changes are concerned, farm workers reported living with an average of 2.85 family members now, as opposed to 4.31 prior to “Land Reform”. This figure alone demonstrates the destruction of the communities and the death and dispersion of numerous farm workers. Of these 2.85 family members, an average of 0.1 are currently working on the farm, as opposed to the average of 1.4 family members working on the farm recorded before “Land Reform”. If one considers the number of children attending school on the farm, this figure has dropped from 40% to 19%.

Finally, the large reduction in fellow farm workers living on the farms demonstrates once again the fragmentation and destruction of the community, suggested here as the single most important goal of “Land Reform”.

Farm Worker 16 described her acute distress following the enforced break-up of her family:

Things have changed for me because being comfortable means staying with all your children, and I do not stay with them now. If you stayed with them, for example, you would know what they would have eaten when they go to school. I sometimes cry when I think that I would have been staying with all my children had my husband not passed away. I am not happy. I would have wanted to stay with my children seeing them going to school. The other one stays in X, maybe my daughter-in-law ill-treats him by beating him or not giving him food. My other child goes to school in Y with his father’s young brother. The one who stays in X is better off, I can see that the one who stays in Y is not comfortable. He does not even have clothes to wear. I would have been staying with all my children had I been at the farm. Or if I had my own house in Z I would look for ideas on how to survive whilst I am at my own house. I would have been hoarding items to sell and sell them at the market outside. My children would be selling and they would be surviving. I can say that I am comfortable but I am not, because my children are not comfortable. If my children were comfortable then I would say I am comfortable, even if I suffer or fall sick, whilst my children are well fed I would say that I am comfortable. Right now I am comfortable, I do not say that I am not comfortable because I am well looked after. They buy blankets, this and that everything they buy for me. I am given clothes but my children do not have clothes. My salary is not enough to even buy a pair of shoes. I am not happy. My children’s fees are paid for, he is given bus fare from here to Kariba, he is given school fees but the problem is where to stay. I used to stay with my children when I was at the farm. I used to say “you go and dig out some sweet potatoes, you go and borrow bread from the shop.” It doesn’t matter that I do not have much but I could see to it that my children are surviving. But right now I am not happy about having my children being looked after by someone else. I used to think that my Murungu was going to remember me and buy me a house for me to stay with my children but it’s not happening like that. I am not asking him, you cannot keep asking so I just keep quiet. He promised that he was going to look after me until my husband dies. Having your children being looked after by someone is not easy, that is when you hear that someone has died of stress.

Farm Worker 17 expressed regret at the change in circumstances caused by “Land Reform”:

What I would like to say is that everyone who was left by Varungu is regretting and thinks of the life that they used to lead with Varungu, that includes me and my family, everyone. My wish is that if only things can return back to normal, to what they were like in the past. I am not saying that the whites should necessarily come back but I wish I could have the lifestyle that I used to lead in the past. The lump that I will always have in my throat is that A and B - C’s kids – died because they were moved from where they were staying and were now staying in an area with cold hearts. My friend D was well looked after at the farm, he did not have relatives but we buried a lot of people who did not have relatives and they were well looked after at the farm. Quite a number of people have died as a result of the land grabs, because I remember some elderly gentleman who died at E; he used to work at E. He was a worker who was well known to Murungu because he used to work in the cattle paddocks most of the times. He died when we had left the farm and I am told that the settlers refused to give him a place where he could be buried and he ended up being buried at the next farm. I would like to say thank you to Murungu because he has shown that he still cares for me, they still remember me, and I also still remember them.

Coping strategy

It is interesting to find out what farm workers did after the farmer had been evicted.

The table above highlights the destruction of the formal economy in Zimbabwe. With the greatest proportion of workers coping after eviction by “buying and selling”, we see how the informal economy began to thrive. It is very interesting too that so few workers should migrate to the rural areas, with only 9% saying that they had chosen this strategy. This backs up other assessments that very few farm workers had a rural home.

It is also interesting that 17% stated that they worked for the new farmer. GAPWUZ statistics have demonstrated the enormous difference in wages earned by workers under the old employers and the wages paid by the new farmers.

Finally, it is significant that 23% of workers stated that they had moved to town after their eviction. This would be more comforting were it not for another question asked of these same workers. 41 respondents out 159, or 26%, said that they were affected by Operation Murambatsvina (or officially in English “Operation Clean Up”, euphemistically adapted from the literal translation “Operation Clear the Filth”). Operation Murambatsvina was a 2005 attack on the poor and vulnerable within municipalities through invoking colonial-era legislation to bulldoze informal (and some formal) settlements and destroy informal traders. Those farm workers who moved to town would have been forced into the areas targeted by Operation Murambatsvina and had further property destroyed.

Damages incurred as a result of “Land Reform”

In order to ascertain the degree of losses sustained by commercial farm workers as a result of “Land Reform”, two questions were asked: ‘Did you have the amenity before “Land Reform”?’ and ‘Do you have the amenity now?’ This exercise gave the following results:

In this text we will not repeat all the details of the above, but it is nonetheless recommended that the table is considered carefully. It is evident that the losses have been of vast proportions for farm workers. Much has been made, and rightly so, of the huge financial losses sustained by commercial farmers. However, there has been a shameful lack of public interest in the real and quantifiable losses sustained by these same farmers’ employees, let alone in the no less real, but unquantifiable, losses such as the loss of cultural rights regarding appeasing ancestral spirits. Living conditions today, quite apart from the fact that the workers are now unemployed and thus have no steady income, are much worse than before.

Everything is worse, and by an average decrease of 58%. Let us consider a few of the major changes. The loss of livestock is reported by 83% of respondents, and crops by 78%. Taking into account the high loss of other incomes (82%) and the loss of subsidised rations (68%), it is scarcely surprising that the farm workers, like the rest of the country, are now unable to feed themselves adequately. Medical care has dropped by 74%, piped water by 61%, access to a clinic by 52% and toilets by 42%. Such conditions are very likely to have contributed to the severe cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe in 2008/2009. Perhaps most significant, however, is the loss of a home (61%) and wages (66%). These losses are common to both farmers and farm workers, and are deeply felt by respondents. The destruction of one’s livelihood and one’s home is devastating, both physically and psychologically, and when done with intent, as here, provide ample evidence of the State’s callous disregard for the lot of many of its citizens.

It should be noted that farm workers frequently compare the current conditions on the farms to the considerably better conditions that they lived in prior to “Land Reform”. This should not be taken to imply that the authors of this report view farm workers as formerly living in some sort of prelapsarian bliss. On the contrary, it is clear that farm workers received the lowest wages of any group in the country and were often exploited. For example, Timothy Neill, citing a study by Kanyenze, discusses in a 2004 report by the Zimbabwe Community Development Trust how the Economic Structural Adjustment Program (ESAP) benefited employers but not workers in the 1990s.

Real average earnings collapsed but productivity levels remained high. During ESAP productivity levels doubled from those of the both the pre- and post-Independence periods, yet the farm workers were still paid poor wages. Average real earnings for the period 1991 – 1997 were $30.92 (based on 1980 prices. For indices, 1980=100) but productivity averaged $189.27 over the same period. That is six times average real earnings. (Kanyenze, 2001).

A FCTZ report entitled ‘The Situation of Commercial Farm Workers after Land Reform in Zimbabwe’ reviews the post-Independence academic literature on the conditions of farm workers up until 2000:

The literature on farm workers post-Independence picked up the themes explored during the colonial era. Much of it focused on low wages, poor housing and amenities, and surviving vestiges of quasifeudal and paternalistic relationships between landowners and farm workers. There was a strong element of advocacy in this literature (Amanor-Wilks, 1995; Balleis The Situation of Commercial Farm Workers after Land Reform in Zimbabwe 24 and Mugwetsi,1994; FCTZ, 2001; Tandon, 2001). It urged an improvement of the social and wage conditions of this ‘forgotten’ and ‘invisible’ stratum of the working class. Farm workers were seen as lagging behind other social sectors, and as being denied participation in full political and economic life. There was, however, an acknowledgement that there had been some changes in their living conditions, although these were, on the whole, Inadequate (Amanor-Wilks, 1995). There was strong advocacy for the empowerment of farm workers through better working conditions, income and food security, and access to health, education and security of tenure (Gavi and Banda, 2001). Recommendations were made for more positive government policy on housing and sanitation, and land rights for farm workers (Magaramombe, 2001). This literature reflected the growing role of NGOs in programmes to assist and empower the farm worker community in the 1990s.

So it should be remembered that the living and working conditions of the farm workers in the late 1990’s were in urgent need of improvement. However, this makes it all the more striking that the workers in the following extracts look back to the time before “Land Reform” so nostalgically. It further underscores the severity of the circumstances in which farm workers

now find themselves. In addition, it should be remarked that the more socially conscious farmers were often more likely to be politically active and thus associated with the MDC. This meant that, in practice, farmers whose workers were better paid and lived in better conditions were often the target of more severe violations.

Farm Worker 11 described the amenities on the farm prior to “Land Reform” and eviction:

We were comfortable on the farm. We did not have too many problems, the farm owner used to help so much especially with issues pertaining to education, in sickness he used to help and also on other various issues. There were cases where he did not ask to be paid back loans but he would require to be paid back in cases like lobola loans, or if you wanted to acquire some personal items. But if it was about other things concerning the farm he did not make you pay back, especially education fees and during times of sickness and also if he was satisfied with your hospital cards, he did not make you pay back. He would just say the farm would cater for it. We noticed that the farm owner was a well up person when he built a school for us, a preschool and he also installed a television and a radio in the pre-school. The television was such that those who wanted to watch television after work would go watch it for free because it belonged to the farm; it was for the whole compound. During the holidays he could also buy us some items and give us free of charge after we had pleased him with what he would have asked us to do. After that, just before say at the beginning of the tobacco sowing season, he could give us a free day where he would hold a party for us and then we continued with our work thereafter. After executing our duties and after he sold his produce he would also give us some bonus. He would give not just staff but everyone including the general labourers. He also used to do an inspection in the compounds every six months. The winners would be awarded with pots and some other items. He would check for the most well kept garden, a well looked after house and the most hygienic house. The health worker would get into the compound advising us on what to do. Prizes would be given to the best five well kept houses. From this we observed that he was an understanding and very helpful person. If you had some relatives like some foreigners that were amongst us, some had some very old mothers and some very old fathers and if they had nowhere to stay he would make them stay at some place which we used to call “X” where he had built some brick houses, there was no electricity but running water was available where these elderly people resided. And sometimes if he was happy with his sales he would buy some overalls and work suits to give to these elderly people. These elderly people would in return help by sometimes clearing up the roads and picking up some dirt. This is how he used to help us.

Farm Worker 18 described the services that used to exist on the farm but which are no longer available:

We used to get a lot of things from Murungu at the farm. He used to give us chickens for free, he used to assist with school fees, he used to provide us with free transport to take us to the hospital in the event that we fell sick, he also used to give us money to attend funerals and he also used to pay us good salaries. I personally used to stay in a three-roomed brick house.

Farm Worker 16 received help transporting the body of her dead husband:

What Murungu did for me, he ferried my husband to the rural area because a lot of people are unable to do that, but I managed to do that through Murungu. Murungu asked me if I wanted my husband to be buried at the farm and deny him the opportunity to be grieved by his relatives and I said no to that. Because my husband’s sickness emanated from the farm and there was no way I wanted him to be buried at the farm, it was better for us to bury him in the rural areas. So Murungu said that he was going to do as I wanted. I am very grateful that God intervened and Murungu respected my wishes.

Farm Worker 7 described life before eviction:

My life was good before the farm was taken over. I was able to educate my children and I could clothe my family, I was able to feed my family well and we used to lead a good life. I was paid my salary at the end of every month, I was given help if my child got injured and had to be taken to the hospital, I would tell Murungu about it and he would quickly organize that I get assistance. I would be given a motor vehicle to take my child to hospital. I used to be assisted in all this plus if I ran short of money I was able to borrow to enable my child to go to school. Murungu did not give us rations but we led a good life.

Farm Worker 11 described the current state of the farm:

There is no progress being made, the farm has deteriorated such that you will not believe that it is the same farm that won the “tobacco grower of the year”. We were the runners up and we won the grower of the year and [the farmer] was there but now you will not believe that it is the same farm that won the grower of the year in the whole of Zimbabwe. The farm has now been turned into a junkyard, some of the tractors left by the white man were burnt up in the forest; they did not attend to the tractors that had breakdowns. There are no more irrigation pipes as some were used as pots and buckets. Diesel generators were modified to be tractors and they were destroyed just like that. They sold some of the roofing that belonged to unoccupied houses. You will feel pity if you go to the farm as it is now a junk yard.

Farm Worker 19 describes the situation on the farm prior to “Land Reform”:

Briefly I would say that life at the farm was good because we used to lead comfortable lifestyles. Our school children used to go to school without any problems with the assistance of this Murungu. We were assisted with school fees. They used to grow food. They used to grow different crops, so we were all fed in terms of our welfare. We used to eat different food stuffs. There was a big orchard such that we used to even eat fruits. We were given this for free. He used to grade the fruits and he would give his employees the remainder of the fruits for free. There were some apples, peaches, plums and sweet potatoes. We used to grow a lot of sweet potatoes. So in terms of our health and in terms of food we used to eat good food and there was plenty of it. He also used to slaughter a beast so that we could get some meat. The houses were beautiful. They were brick houses with electricity. We used to drink clean tapped water. We were also given some gardens where we could cultivate on our own, such that everything was very good. Problems would come up here and there but our lifestyles were better than our way of life now.

As we continued with the survey it became apparent that quantifying the actual property losses sustained by farm workers is crucial to understanding their circumstances. 

This table presents two things. Firstly, under average it presents the average percentage of respondents in our sample reporting the loss of the said item of property during the period of “Land Reform”. Typically, these losses occurred as a result of summary eviction, or from the looting and destruction of their homesteads as a result of their failure to adequately support ZANU PF. The second finding, based on a highly conservative estimate of the value of the property lost, is the total and average monetary loss to the respondents in US$. Note here that ‘n’ for this question is small, between 18 and 20 people. It is immediately clear that actual physical property losses are very high, and it is expected that the final report on this project will demonstrate massive financial losses. These losses were sustained as a direct result of “Land Reform” and the Government of Zimbabwe is thus liable for them.

Farm Worker 18 described some of the property lost as a result of being summarily evicted:

I didn’t like what war veteran X did and I am still not happy because I lost a lot of things. I lost my wardrobe and my clothes that disappeared and I had to start from scratch. So it’s something that upset me because I never anticipated that. We lost quite a number of things because some of the things remained behind in the house because we were evicted without notice. They wanted us to vacate the place with immediate effect so I didn’t manage to take my belongings when I was evicted. Because they asked us to vacate the farm and go where our Murungu had gone because they didn’t want to see Murungu’s “people” at the farm. That was because we had refused to work for X.

Farm Workers 20 and 21, who are a married couple, described their loss of property and the loss of property of their relative who was assaulted on their behalf.

Wife: They came to attack us and we fled our houses but we could not take our belongings with us because we were fleeing. We fled and we hid somewhere. Murungu was not there on that day, he had gone to his other ranch which was in Z. So this happened in his absence. So they demolished my house and my husband’s uncle’s house was also demolished. His name is A. After demolishing the house they took some food and utensils, they took the nice things and then destroyed some. They took some pots and they left some behind. I think they left two pots in my uncle’s house. They took some dishes and they destroyed some, they cut up some containers, they destroyed some tables and they took some blankets and some duvets and cassettes, they took some of our clothes and some paraffin lights too.

Husband: They knew that it would prompt Murungu to leave if they destroyed some individuals. So their intention was to destroy everything that belonged to me in the event that they failed to find me because there was no time for us to pack all our belongings and flee with them. We just managed to flee empty-handed. We fled with our lives and we left our belongings and they got an opportunity to destroy them. Our doors were locked. They did not find us and they took some of our belongings and destroyed some. They had warned us. They warned us to flee or else they were going to kill us. They said “especially you who is close to Murungu”. Meaning me, Farm Worker 20. They said “we are much more interested in you because you are close to Murungu. You know all the information regarding this farm. If we get hold of you in your house you will die” so I fled with my family. They would have done this to me because when they did not find me they went to my uncle’s house. My uncle was there and they beat him up thoroughly. He was beaten up by some youths who were holding some clubs and several other weapons. We were not there to witness it but we are told that he was rescued by some leader who told the youth to stop beating him up because he had had enough. And they said that they wanted to go with him to finish him off.

Farm Worker 4 described property he lost when he left the farm:

I now feared that the settlers could hurt me. During those days I used to lock my house from outside and then I would get in through the window so that it would appear as if I wasn’t there. [The farmer] then asked me to go with the lorry to collect my belongings. The settlers were waiting for me when I went to take my belongings and they asked me where I was heading. I told them that I was going to my rural home; I did not tell them that I was going to Murungu. [The farmer] had given me some wheelbarrows earlier and the settlers asked me to leave them behind and I told them that I had been given these by [the farmer]. They told me that they wanted [the farmer] himself to tell them that he had given these wheelbarrows to me. So my wheelbarrows and my other belongings remained behind. I was in fear when I was packing up such that I lost some of my belongings, some of them were stolen because I discovered them missing on arrival at Harare. I have no idea who took them. I lost umbrellas, a suitcase packed with my mother’s clothes and two blankets. I used to stay with my mother.

Farm Worker 10 described the disruption and loss to her life caused by eviction:

Eventually my husband had to pack and go after [war veteran] X had come around 2 o’clock armed with two knives, one big and one small, and a brick that he used to smash the door, prompting my husband to wake up. I implored my husband not to come out but he said he had no choice; better they kill him than for them to throw that brick and kill the innocent children. So he gathered courage and came out and the rest of us including the children just followed. X had dropped the brick but he was still wielding the machete. The children pleaded with my husband and I to run for our lives and we said it was better to die than to run and leave them. So X grabbed the keys and ordered us to leave there and then and he locked the doors and chased us away. There was him and his brother-in-law at the forefront and some others who were just lurking in the dark. I couldn’t make out their faces because there was no moonlight. So he chased us away and we spent the whole night standing under trees in the gum plantation. They then had a free-for-all in the house, leaving us completely nothing. Since that day I only have two skirts; this one that I am wearing and the one that’s left at home. The following morning we were told to pack and go but there was no longer anything to pack since everything had been looted so my husband and I we just left empty-handed. My child had long stopped going to school because they would waylay him and threaten him with death if he dared pass. We were offered a lift by a certain white man and he left us at another farm. Since then my child only managed to resume school this year in June.

Compensation and Recommendations

This study then proceeded to ask how respondents wished to be compensated for the losses they had suffered.

The above table is revealing. Whilst more than half of respondents wished for land as a method of compensation, it is interesting that this was chosen by fewer respondents than the other options. The most popular method of compensation, when measured by percentage, was Housing, though this was from a sample of only 20 respondents. It is very interesting that Social Amenities should be the most popular amongst the larger sample. This suggests once again that providing schools, clinics and adequate living conditions might be viewed by farm workers as a viable method of compensation. The provision of jobs, not surprisingly considering the vast unemployment caused by “Land Reform”, is also a popular method of compensation.

Farm Worker 13 would like to see adequate housing being restored as part of any compensation:

My major request is that I wish we can find somewhere to house our families because they are suffering. Right now our kids are not going to school because we were evicted from the farm. If you decide to move your family to someone’s house and if they found out that the person that they evicted is being housed by someone, they will come and evict or beat up the person who will be housing you. I would actually ululate if the farms were to be given back to the whites because farm workers are suffering in the farms right now. People are just being strong because there is nothing that they can do. There is no day that passes by without a farm worker being scolded or being criticized. We are actually upset about it as farm workers. If you get into the farms and ask all the farm workers they will tell you that they are not happy with the way that they are living in the farms right now.

Farm Worker 22 wished for a piece of land as compensation:

I would like a piece of land, yes, but not to evict Murungu from his farm but just a piece for me to grow food for my kids. But not for me to evict Murungu from the farm for me to take over, I would not be able to farm on Murungu’s farm. I don’t have anything in terms of inputs , I would just want a piece of land for me to grow maize and sweet potatoes for my kids but not for me to evict Murungu from his farm for me to take over , I will not be able to manage.

In the national debate over the future of Zimbabwe’s once productive farms and the aftermath of violence and political oppression, there has not yet been any official attempt to ascertain the views of the farm workers, the greatest victims of this period in our recent history, as to how this matter should be resolved. This project is in the process of doing exactly this, and our preliminary results are as follows:

Recommendations                                    Sum            N            Ave

Continue as is                                                 2             20             10%

Granting Amnesty to perpetrators                         3             20             15%

Forming Co-operatives                                     7             20             35%

Training in other jobs                                    31             56             55%

Start land redistribution afresh                         45             76             59%

Legal proceedings against perpetrators             15             20             75%

Returning to the status quo ante 2000             57             76             75%

The least popular option in the set choices given to farm workers is to “continue as is”, with only 2 of the 20 respondents believing this represented a viable way forward. Also very unpopular, according to farm workers, is the grant of official amnesty to perpetrators of violations. This has significant implications for the setting up of any Truth and Justice Commission, where it would appear that only a minority of victims wish their attackers to be granted immunity. In fact, 75% of this (small) sample wish for the perpetrators of violations to be prosecuted.

Many (59%) believed that land redistribution should begin afresh or, in the terms of this report, that “Land Reform” should be replaced by genuine Land Reform. This view is important. Finally, it comes as no surprise to the authors of this report that of 76 farm worker respondents, no fewer than 57 – or 75% – recommended that the nation’s agricultural land return to the status quo ante 2000. This is a clear indictment of “Land Reform” by farm workers who should surely have been in the forefront of the beneficiaries of any genuine Land Reform programme.

Farm Worker 16 suggested that unproductive settlers be evicted and farmers be reinstated:

About the land issue, like at our farm, it is better for the settlers to be evicted because they are not utilizing the land, they are growing weeds. They are growing weeds, there is no farming going on. Some new farmers are utilizing the farms but some are not, they should drive out those who are not utilizing the farms and give them back to their owners. They should give the land to those who want to stay with Varungu, it should be up to them to agree to stay with Varungu and those who do not want should not be given land.

Farm Worker 7 wished for peace and certainty in the future:

I would like Murungu to come back because these issues of trauma were not there during Varungu’s time. You just knew that you would go to work and get paid at the end of the month and if you did not perform well you would deal with the foreman and be sent back home.

In closing, it seems apt to end with the words of Farm Worker 19. Farm Worker 19 reflected on the traumatic effects of the “Land Reform” programme:

The land acquisition programme traumatized us a great deal because of the way it was carried out. Because a lot of people were traumatized most of them do not have anywhere to stay to date, they do not have enough food and clothing. Murungu used to help us in a lot of aspects. So right now a lot of people are suffering, you would really appreciate that people are suffering a great deal if you could talk to the rest of the people on the farms. Those like me who are in Harare are far much better because Varungu are helping us here and there. If you see some of the whites that we used to work with you can actually see that they are traumatized. They are still traumatized so I would say that the land acquisition programme was very wrong. -- ZimOnline