Officers set on fire hundreds of dwellings on farms south of the capital, Harare, after ordering more than 700 occupiers to remove their belongings and evacuate.
Correspondents say this has been the
first serious move against the war veterans since February, when they began
their land occupations.
The police action was ordered by the Home Affairs minister, John Nkomo.
More than 1,500 farms have been invaded since President Robert Mugabe
announced his policy of redistributing land from whites to blacks.
Strict orders
"We have received instructions to be more strict with former fighters who
refuse to obey government orders," a police officer who sought anonymity told
reporters.
The BBC correspondent in Harare, Joseph Winter, says no action has been taken
anywhere else, although a large number of the occupied farms are not on the
official list for acquisition.
Police have previously ignored several court orders to evict the squatters.
Two orders by senior ministers for occupiers to vacate private land were
later revoked by President Mugabe.
On Monday, about 100 squatters were driven off a farm near Chitungwiza, a
township 25km south of Harare.
A fortnight ago, a group of schoolchildren were abducted and allegedly
sexually abused at the farm.
But police deny any link between the abductions and the evictions.
The evictions continued on Tuesday as police and council workers began
demolishing several homes in the western suburb of Kambuza.
Official list
Mr Nkomo's eviction order came as President Mugabe was attending an economic
summit in neighbouring Mozambique.
Mr Mugabe says that war veterans will only be allowed to remain on those
farms acquired by the government, ending the uncertainty in the rest of the
agricultural sector.
The government announced this month it would confiscate 3,000 white owned
properties without paying compensation and hand them over to landless blacks.
About 4,000 whites own one third of the nation's prime land and employ nearly
two million black workers.
Reuters: Wednesday August 23 12:04 AM ET
HARARE, Zimbabwe (Reuters) - Zimbabwe police set fire to makeshift houses erected by war veterans illegally occupying two white-owned farms near the capital Harare, state television reported.
The television quoted veterans and supporters of the ruling ZANU-PF party as saying police gave no warning of the dawn raid and did not allow occupants enough time to remove their belongings before the structures were burned down.
Witnesses said Tuesday that police also destroyed makeshift huts at another farm on the outskirts of Harare, where self-styled war veterans recently abducted and allegedly sexually molested schoolgirls.
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena confirmed the incidents but declined to give further details or say why police had undertaken the actions.
Police have been accused of siding with the veterans who have invaded over 1,000 white-owned farms since February with the blessing of President Robert Mugabe.
Mugabe has announced plans to seize over half of the 12 million hectares of prime farmland owned by about 4,500 whites and use it to resettle landless blacks.
Farmers say the veterans and ZANU-PF supporters continue to assault them and their laborers, steal livestock and disrupt agricultural activity despite recent pledges by the government to restore relative normalcy on the farms.
Mugabe says the veterans will only be moved off the farms as and when they are resettled onto about 200 farms it has already acquired without contest from the farmers who owned them.
Wednesday, August 23 12:29 AM SGT
HARARE, Aug 22 (AFP) -
Veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation war suffered rare setbacks in their campaign to redistribute white-owned farmland here, as police burned squatters' homes Tuesday and black farm workers fended off a new invasion attempt.
Police around Harare began a series of operations late Monday and through Tuesday to burn down homes built by people occupying farmland and other open spaces near the city.
Police have previously been accused of standing by or supporting the illegal occupations of hundreds of white farms by the war veterans, whose land invasion campaign have the open encouragement by President Robert Mugabe.
Around 1,600 farms have been invaded by the veterans and their supporters since February, in an attempt to speed up a controversial government programme to resettle landless blacks on white land.
Two court rulings issued earlier this year ordering the eviction of the squatters have largely been ignored, although government officials have on several occasions said the squatters would be moved.
But outside Harare's poor and overcrowded townships, police have now begun burning homes built illegally by the land occupiers.
Police were not forcing the people to actually leave the land.
At Stoneridge Estate in Chitungwiza, 10 kilometres (six miles) south of Harare, dwellings built by veterans for about 100 black Zimbabweans were reduced to smouldering ruins.
But defiant war veterans refused to move, calling the crackdown an act of betrayal.
"Police officers started to set everything on fire and destroy everything around them" said Chipo Dziki, one of the occupiers. "They took us by surprise, it is betrayal."
The police action continued on Tuesday, with more illegally-built houses set ablaze near Harare's Waterfalls suburb on the Hopley and Saturday Retreat farms.
The state-owned daily Herald said the action against veterans showed that police were beginning to restore order.
"We have received instructions to be more strict with former fighters who refuse to obey government orders," said a police officer, who asked to remain unnamed.
Home Affairs Minister John Nkomo said last week the government would start evicting the invaders.
Meanwhile, northwest of the city, black farm workers banded together late Monday near Karoi to turn back an attempt to occupy more farmland in the area.
The incident, on Renroc farm in Karoi, was one of the first times black farm workers have organized themselves to resist the sometimes-violent land invasions.
At least three farm workers and four white farmers have been killed during the occupations, while scores of workers and their families have been beaten, terrorised and had their properties destroyed.
"The labor have had enough," said Kelvin Weare, a Karoi businessman speaking by telephone from Karoi, 180 kilometres (100 miles) northwest of Harare.
"They're sick of being beaten, assaulted and having their families assaulted," Weare said.
A situation report for the tobacco-growing district, issued by the local farmers' association said several war veterans had been injured in Monday's incident.
On Tuesday, the veterans had returned but their efforts had not turned violent.
Weare said war veterans had attempted to invade several farms in the district over the weekend and had beaten workers, issued death threats and destroyed property on some of the farms.
"There are some farmers here very worried about their lives," Weare said.
The attempt to occupy Renroc came after white farmers burned down the grass hut of a squatter already on one farm, Weare said.
One invader was caught and severely beaten before white farmers intervened to stop the assault.
The report from the local farmers' association said police had been advised of the impending confrontation but had refused to act, arriving two hours later.
The police chief in the area is a war veteran, and the report said he "smiled and drove away" after farmers demanded that law and order be restored in the district.
HARARE, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's cabinet will discuss police destruction of makeshift houses erected by war veterans illegally occupying white-owned farms near the capital Harare, a government official said on Wednesday.
Acting on Home Affairs Minister John Nkomo's orders, police on Tuesday destroyed houses under construction and burnt down makeshift huts on three farms, including one where war veterans recently abducted and allegedly sexually molested schoolgirls.
The official Herald newspaper reported on Wednesday that police had also evicted the veterans and supporters of the ruling ZANU-PF party, apparently overturning President Robert Mugabe's assertion that they would only vacate the farms as and when moved onto resettlement land.
On Wednesday presidential spokesman George Charamba declined to comment on the evictions and whether they represented a change in government policy on the invasions.
``Cabinet is meeting today and naturally that is going to be one of their topics of discussion,'' Charamba told Reuters.
Self-styled veterans of Zimbabwe's 1970s war of independence have, with Mugabe's blessing, invaded almost 1,000 white farms since February, disrupting agricultural activity.
In an editorial on Wednesday, the Herald applauded what it called the government's crackdown on war veterans ``who have been causing lawlessness on occupied farms.''
``There is no need for disorder and disruptions on occupied farms and there is no need for any more farm occupations,'' the Herald said.
Farmers say the invaders continue to assault them and their labourers, steal livestock and disrupt agricultural activity under the eye of the police, who have been widely criticised for siding with the veterans.
``Now that the police have rediscovered their moral courage and decided to act in a manner they were constitutionally obliged to have acted way back in February, it is absolutely imperative that they are never seen to vacillate again,'' the private-owned Daily News said.
Mugabe plans to acquire nearly half the 12 million hectares (30 million acres) owned by about 4,500 white farmers to resettle peasants who he says were deprived of their rightful land when British nationals colonised the country over a century ago.
The government intends to relocate peasants on about 100 farms in each of Zimbabwe's eight provinces before the onset of the rainy season in about two months' time under a speeded-up programme launched last month.
Critics say besides damaging agriculture by handing land over to peasants ill-equipped to fully utilise it, the programme will also displace about 500,000 black farm workers and their families.
At least 31 people, mostly opposition supporters and five white farmers, were killed during the farm invasions and in a wave of violence across Zimbabwe before the June general election that Mugabe's ZANU-PF party narrowly won.
But following the devaluation of the
Zimbabwean dollar on August 1,
the
prevailing reality is that prices of available food have risen by as
much as 25 percent for the consumer -
compounding other problems,
such as
soaring inflation and foreign exchange and fuel shortages.
The Zimbabwe dollar, artificially pegged to
the US dollar since January
1999, was
devalued from 38 to 50 units to the greenback. Richard
Dowden, Africa correspondent of The Economist
magazine, said: "We
might be looking
at emergency food aid for Zimbabwe which is just
ridiculous. The crop has been reasonable in the whole
of southern
Africa."
Speaking by telephone, Erich Bloch, a leading
economic commentator
based in
Zimbabwe and columnist for the Zimbabwe Independent, said:
"There is a risk of needing emergency food aid. It
depends to what
extent the (farm)
occupations continue over the next eight weeks.
"That will impact on planting for the next
season ... If they don't plant
the
primary food by October 15, there will be food shortages by early
2001."
But he added: "In practice, I think there is
likely to be a significant
reduction
in land occupation." Since February, activists saying they are
veterans of Zimbabwe's independence war have led
sometimes-violent
occupations of
white-owned farms to urge the government to speed
up its land reform programme.
The land reform scheme will involve seizing
more than 3 000
white-owned farms
covering five million hectares for resettlement by
blacks. Wheat planting in Zimbabwe is down 30 percent
this year,
according to the
Commercial Farmers' Union. Maize planting - which
does not begin until November - is also predicted to
fall by 15 per
cent.
Carolyn Jenkins from the Centre for the Study
of African Economies, in
Oxford,
said: "Zimbabweans may manage to continue feeding
themselves. "However, the seizure of 3 000 farms will
probably close
off most agricultural
exports, especially tobacco, which will reduce
further the critical shortage of foreign exchange.
"This, in turn, will
mean less to pay
for fuel, which could lead to the closure of many
manufacturing enterprises, adding to unemployment
already estimated
to be in excess of
50 percent." Analysts agreed that the primary need
is to restore law and order, which should in turn
restore international
confidence in
Zimbabwe and help unravel the tight knot of economic
problems.
Bloch said that foreign exchange shortages
will persist unless payments
from
international financial institutions resume.
In turn, if the shortage of foreign exchange
is resolved, the fuel
shortage should
end. Economic woes from land occupations have also
meant that farmers cannot use their land as collateral
to secure loans
to finance planting
of the next harvest.
Bloch said he was optimistic Zimbabwe would
recover, but said it would
take
time.
"By the end of 2002, we will have restored
the economy to where it
was in June
1997 ... in another two years by 2004, we will be where
we would have been if we hadn't made the mistakes of
the last three
years."
He said authorities were "beginning to do the
right things" and he
forecast they
would withdraw from the fighting in the Democratic
Republic of Congo that he estimated is costing one
million US dollars a
day. Dowden
said: "People are saying recovery could take two to three
years. It might well be longer." Bloch stressed
Zimbabwe was not a
monoculture,
although he said agriculture accounts for around 20
percent of gross domestic product.
Mining accounts for another 20 percent, then
there is tourism -
although that is
dwindling as Zimbabwe's problems deter visitors -
horticulture and manufacturing.
Even if Zimbabwe is moving in the right
direction, the nation continues
to
fall far short of criteria that it must meet to qualify for aid from
international institutions and foreign
governments.
< A team from the International Monetary
Fund and the World Bank is
set to
arrive Thursday in Zimbabwe for meetings with government and
opposition officials to assess the ailing economy. The
IMF suspended
aid to Zimbabwe last
year.
A British foreign office spokesman said: "We
see the steps that the
new financial
minister has begun to take and we think they are on the
right lines. We and the international financial
institutions have said we
are willing
to help with reform of the economy.
"Modernisation is a prerequisite for
substantial help. We would look to
the Zimbabwean government to begin to move along that road."
A spokesman for Britain's Department for
International Development
said
Zimbabwe had not made sufficient progress to qualify for "a higher
case scenario" under which the department
would provide assistance
worth some
10 million pounds per year. However, he said the
department was "committed to working to reduce poverty
in Zimbabwe
where we can be
effective."
Hunzvi, Mugabe talk land reform (News 24)
Harare - The leader of Zimbabwe's liberation war veterans and
President Robert Mugabe were meeting on
Thursday to discuss the
government's
latest turnaround in its controversial land reform
programme, presidential spokesperson George Charamba
said.
"They are discussing the latest developments
and the application of
the land
reform on the ground," said Charamba, of Mugabe's meeting
with veteran leader Chenjerai Hitler
Hunzvi.
The meeting comes a day after the
government's abrupt U-turn in its
relations with war veterans who have led squatters onto about 1 600
white-owned farms to push the government
into resettling poor blacks
on the
farmland.
On Monday and Tuesday, while Mugabe was in
Mozambique for a
regional economic
conference, police staged their first real crackdown
on the veterans' movement, demolishing their illegal
settlements on
seven sites near
Harare.
Then on Wednesday, after Mugabe had returned
from Maputo, the
government issued a
short statement back-pedalling over the police
action, and saying it "regrets" the razing of
squatters' houses.
But Charamba said the turnaround did not
signify a feud within
Mugabe's
cabinet.
"The actions that the police launched at the
beginning of the week
were wrong, on
the content and form," he said.
"They have been decided by a small group of local officials," he added.
Hunzvi has remained silent about the
demolitions, but other veterans
have
said they felt betrayed by the government. Previously, the
veterans had enjoyed open support from Mugabe. -
Sapa-AFP
25 August 2000
In this issue :
From The Times (UK), 25 August
Guards rescue Mugabe from veterans mob
HARARE - PRESIDENT Mugabe's elite military guard had to force their way through a barricade yesterday to allow the Zimbabwean leader to drive through a rowdy demonstration by guerrilla war veterans. A mob of former guerrillas controlling the gates of the ruling Zanu (PF) headquarters refused to allow Mr Mugabe to leave, and demanded to speak to him about a police crackdown against lawlessness this week in which hundreds of their shacks on white-owned land were destroyed. Soldiers had to break down a barricade erected at the gates by the veterans, Ziana, the domestic news agency reported. It said that the party headquarters had been "besieged" by the veterans all day. The incident is the most serious affront to Mr Mugabe since he came to power 20 years ago. The notorious war veterans' movement, which he harnessed for a savage election campaign earlier this year, is now seen as a serious challenge to his power. The mob tried repeatedly to force their way into the 19-storey building, where Mr Mugabe was meeting his Politburo to discuss the veterans' eviction. Vice-President Joseph Msika was jeered by the crowd when he told them to respect their elders.
For three days this week police converged on about ten farms mostly on the outskirts of Harare and torched scores of makeshift homes erected by veterans in their violent seven-month campaign to seize land. It was the first serious attempt by Zimbabwean authorities to end rural lawlessness. But it slipped into confusion yesterday as the Government apologised for evicting the veterans from white farms. "What was done was wrong," Jonathan Moyo, the Information Minister, said. The Government took full responsibility for the evictions and the victims would be compensated, he said. The palls of smoke from veterans' blazing mud-and-thatch huts on state television provided the first substantive sign of a return to the rule of law for the country's persecuted white farming community. John Nkomo, the Home Affairs Minister, declared that "anarchy shall be dealt with swiftly and thoroughly". The CFU said it was "very encouraged with these efforts to end lawlessness", but the crackdown ended yesterday. No new evictions were reported.
From News24 (SA), 24 August
Confusion as Zim govt 'regrets' evictions
Harare - Confusion surrounded the Zimbabwe's government's unexpected crackdown on lawlessness as a state spokesperson expressed "regret" on Thursday over this week's eviction of so-called guerrilla war veterans from white-owned farms. Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, in statement published in the state-controlled press, said "regrettably" the police not only had acted outside state policy "but also demolished and burned down costly structures and materials" worth over $100 000. The statement followed a meeting of Mugabe's cabinet on Wednesday almost immediately after his return from a trip to Maputo, Mozambique.
Twice before in the seven-month campaign of violent occupations by war veterans of over 1 000 farms, government ministers have ordered crackdowns against the squatters while Mugabe was out of the country, only to have the orders reversed by the 76-year-old president when he returned. Since Monday, riot police have converged on about ten farms on Harare's outskirts and in the Kwekwe farming area in central Zimbabwe where they drove off hundreds of veteran-led squatters, torching their mud-and-thatch huts and wrecking brick structures built on productive land.
"What was done was wrong," Moyo said. "We are looking at ways to redress the situation immediately and compensating the victims and taking corrective measures." He said that veterans would not be moved off farms formally listed by the government for confiscation by government. Those on farms not listed "will be moved to the acquired ones". Observers say his statement suggests that the programme of evictions will be halted, but no clear explication could be obtained from the government. Police were unable to say if any further evictions were taking place. But observers say Mugabe has been intensely embarrassed by the high-profile evictions and graphic coverage by state television and newspapers of burning huts and of police smashing concrete walls.
From News24 (SA), 24 August
SA applauds evictions
Johannesburg - The South African government has welcomed President Robert Mugabe's crackdown on illegal land occupation, saying it showed that the beleaguered Zimbabwean president had kept his word to President Thabo Mbeki to remove war veterans occupying farms. Cabinet spokesperson Joel Netshitenze told reporters: "Developments in the last 48 hours do demonstrate that they were committed to what they had indicated to our delegation." Netshitenze was referring to meeting between Mbeki and Mugabe in Harare on 2 August. Mugabe announced after the meeting that war veterans occupying hundreds of white-owned farms would be moved from the farms and resettled to land acquired by the government within the coming four weeks.
But when Mugabe failed to act against farm occupiers immediately in the days following the meeting, Mbeki's efforts was seen as another failed bid to persuade Mugabe to deal with land reform within the framework of the law. Netshitenze said the cabinet viewed the Zimbabwean police's crackdown on sqautters on Monday and Tuesday as an "implementation of the undertaking to the South African delegation of the eviction of those who are occupying farms that have not been designated". Police demolished shacks built on land south of Harare that veterans have occupied and parcelled out to homeless urban dwellers.
Netshitenze said on Wednesday the cabinet had agreed that South African ministers would continue to meet with their Zimbabwean counterparts in a bid to help its northern neighbour. He said ministers had on Wednesday discussed the oil shortage in Zimbabwe "as well as matters pertaining to multi-lateral institutions". He told AFP he was referring to South Africa's promises to negotiate with the IMF and World Bank on Zimbabwe's behalf.
From The Zimbabwe Independent, 25 August
Dollar devalued again
THE Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe yesterday further devalued the Zimbabwe dollar by 2%, three weeks after the currency was devalued by 24%. The Zimbabwe Independent understands that central bank governor Leonard Tsumba made the announcement yesterday at a scheduled meeting with bank chief executives in the capital. The dollar will today trade at $51 to the United States greenback, with banks expected to buy at between $48,55 and $51, and sell at $53,55. Banks, both commercial and merchant, have entered into a gentleman's agreement that the currency not be sold at margins higher than the agreed rate of 5% above the pegged margin.
The devaluation of the currency would periodically take place until the dollar was pegged at rates obtaining in the parallel market, where trading was at anything between $65 and $70. Exporters have expressed dissatisfaction with the rate set by Finance and Economic Development minister Simba Makoni on August 3, and were holding onto their proceeds in the hope that the currency would be devalued further. It is understood that Tsumba would from time to time announce a devaluation of between 1% and 2%, but would do so at his own pace and time. This was aimed at undercutting speculators who would hold onto their currency when a dated devaluation loomed, only to offload afterwards to cash in.
From The Zimbabwe Independent, 25 August
Amid crippling shortages -- Fuel prices set to go up again
THE price of fuel is set to go up again before the end of next month following the rise in world prices and the devaluation of the Zimbabwe dollar. Oil on the international market has risen to an all-time high of US$31 for a barrel of crude oil over the past fortnight. The impending revision of the tariff being charged by the pipeline company supplying Harare is another contributing factor, sources told the Zimbabwe Independent this month. This comes amidst news that the Belgian financial institution which was key to the brokering of the fuel deal between government and the Independent Petroleum Group of Kuwait had pulled out due to government's failure to honour the terms of the agreement, the Independent has established.
Sources said the Brussels-based KBC Nv Bank withdrew from the deal recently in protest at government's erratic behaviour in fulfilling the terms of the deal, sources close to the dispute said. KBC general manager for South Asia, Middle East and Africa, Marc Bernaert, confirmed in a telephone interview this week that his bank has withdrawn from the deal. He however declined to give reasons. "At the moment we are no longer involved. We withdrew a few months ago," Bernaert said without elaborating….
From News24 (SA), 24 August
'Broke' Zim could need food aid
Harare - Zimbabwe could need emergency food aid early next year, analysts have warned, although some see tentative signs that the nation is moving on from its far-reaching economic and political crisis. But following the devaluation of the Zimbabwean dollar on August 1, the prevailing reality is that prices of available food have risen by as much as 25 percent for the consumer - compounding other problems, such as soaring inflation and foreign exchange and fuel shortages. The Zimbabwe dollar, artificially pegged to the US dollar since January 1999, was devalued from 38 to 50 units to the greenback. Richard Dowden, Africa correspondent of The Economist magazine, said: "We might be looking at emergency food aid for Zimbabwe which is just ridiculous. The crop has been reasonable in the whole of southern Africa."
Speaking by telephone, Erich Bloch, a leading economic commentator based in Zimbabwe and columnist for the Zimbabwe Independent, said: "There is a risk of needing emergency food aid. It depends to what extent the (farm) occupations continue over the next eight weeks. That will impact on planting for the next season ... If they don't plant the primary food by October 15, there will be food shortages by early 2001." But he added: "In practice, I think there is likely to be a significant reduction in land occupation." Wheat planting in Zimbabwe is down 30 percent this year, according to the CFU. Maize planting - which does not begin until November - is also predicted to fall by 15 per cent.
Carolyn Jenkins from the Centre for the Study of African Economies, in Oxford, said: "Zimbabweans may manage to continue feeding themselves. However, the seizure of 3 000 farms will probably close off most agricultural exports, especially tobacco, which will reduce further the critical shortage of foreign exchange. "This, in turn, will mean less to pay for fuel, which could lead to the closure of many manufacturing enterprises, adding to unemployment already estimated to be in excess of 50 percent." Analysts agreed that the primary need is to restore law and order, which should in turn restore international confidence in Zimbabwe and help unravel the tight knot of economic problems.
Bloch said that foreign exchange shortages will persist unless payments from international financial institutions resume. In turn, if the shortage of foreign exchange is resolved, the fuel shortage should end. Economic woes from land occupations have also meant that farmers cannot use their land as collateral to secure loans to finance planting of the next harvest. Bloch said he was optimistic Zimbabwe would recover, but said it would take time. "By the end of 2002, we will have restored the economy to where it was in June 1997 ... in another two years by 2004, we will be where we would have been if we hadn't made the mistakes of the last three years." He said authorities were "beginning to do the right things" and he forecast they would withdraw from the fighting in the DRC of Congo that he estimated is costing one million US dollars a day.
Dowden said: "People are saying recovery could take two to three years. It might well be longer." Bloch stressed Zimbabwe was not a monoculture, although he said agriculture accounts for around 20 percent of gross domestic product. Mining accounts for another 20 percent, then there is tourism - although that is dwindling as Zimbabwe's problems deter visitors - horticulture and manufacturing. Even if Zimbabwe is moving in the right direction, the nation continues to fall far short of criteria that it must meet to qualify for aid from international institutions and foreign governments.
A team from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank is set to arrive Thursday in Zimbabwe for meetings with government and opposition officials to assess the ailing economy. The IMF suspended aid to Zimbabwe last year. A British foreign office spokesman said: "We see the steps that the new financial minister has begun to take and we think they are on the right lines. We and the international financial institutions have said we are willing to help with reform of the economy. Modernisation is a prerequisite for substantial help. We would look to the Zimbabwean government to begin to move along that road." A spokesman for Britain's Department for International Development said Zimbabwe had not made sufficient progress to qualify for "a higher case scenario" under which the department would provide assistance worth some 10 million pounds per year. However, he said the department was "committed to working to reduce poverty in Zimbabwe where we can be effective."
From The Daily News, 24 August
Commercial farmers want court action resumed
THE CFU is under pressure from its members to resume court action against President Mugabe, Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri and war veterans' leader Chenjerai Hunzvi. The CFU held a meeting with its farmers' association chairmen last week, where it is understood the leaders were under pressure to go ahead with litigation, as it was felt the government was not serious in restoring the rule of law on the farms. The pressure comes amid reports of fresh invasions on commercial farms, with 89 work stoppages and 34 farm invasions, according to the CFU report. The farmers said there were 23 reported cases of theft, 57 incidents of tree-cutting, 14 assaults and 28 threats on either farmers or their workers. Sixty-nine animals were reported killed.
A Marondera farmer said the withdrawal of court action should only be temporary. He said most farmers expected the court action to go ahead, especially in light of renewed invasions. CFU spokesman Steve Crawford said the farmers ordered their leadership to resume court action, but only when it became necessary. He could not comment on whether the prevailing anarchy on the farms meant the court action would be revisited. Crawford said there was a confidence crisis in financial institutions reviewing the viability of some of their clients' properties, especially those gazetted for compulsory acquisition. He said most farmers were frustrated over the continued farm occupations, the destruction of farming equipment and poaching in the conservancies.
Crawford said the farmers welcomed the police crackdown on illegal structures and properties in and around Harare. He said the action should spread to other commercial farms. "It remains to be seen how effective the police action will be and whether the crackdown will spread to other areas to ensure that work continues on occupied farms," he said. In Karoi and Tengwe, said the CFU, war veterans have defied police instructions and stopped work on 13 commercial farms. Six former fighters have occupied Montgomery Farm. At Barcombe in Chakari, three war veterans reportedly assaulted a farm worker for refusing to turn off a water pump. He is said to be in a critical condition. Road blocks were reported in Ruwa while war veteran Gilbert Moyo has sold land in and around Ranwick Farm in Chegutu. A war veteran, Kid Muzenda, has led an invasion into Yettom and Marah Farms in Masvingo and ordered the owner to move all cattle and close the farm. The CFU said Riverdene Farm was also invaded.
Please take a few moments to read about the tragedy unfolding in one of
Africa's newest and largest wildlife reserves.
1. Endangered African
wildlife species are being annihilated in Zimbabwe.
2. The Save Valley
conservancy (southern Zimbabwe) – fact sheet.
You are welcome to
circulate this information to people you believe may be interested.
Thank
you.
_____________________________________________________________________
Zimbabwean wildlife is being annihilated
By Alex Duval Smith in Save Valley, Zimbabwe
12 August 2000
As the pale pink haze of the dawn gently gives way to warming sunlight over the African savannah, Kenneth Manyangadze cuts the engine of his four-wheel drive. He might have expected to see an elephant amble into view from behind a baobab, or a giraffe nibbling a mopane tree. But straight ahead of us on the gravel road is a very different creature: a man in a Nike vest.
This is no tourist who has come to feast his eyes on some of the most beautiful and endangered creatures on Earth but a hungry farm worker who will soon fill his belly with rhinoceros, zebra or, if he is particularly cunning, cheetah. What he does not eat, he will sell.
It is the height of the safari season in southern Africa and this year, the poachers - chief among them President Robert Mugabe's "war veterans" - outnumber the tourists.
As Zimbabwe's political crisis reverberates deep in the magical wilderness of Save Valley Conservancy, the world's biggest private game reserve, thousands of rare animals - including the black rhinoceros and the African wild dog, as well as zebras, giraffes and leopards - are the latest victims of a land war which has become a free-for-all among impoverished people struggling to survive.
Amid what he calls the "systematic annihilation'' of stocks by thousands of poachers, the estate manager, Dave Stockil, who works with his uncle, Clive, is in despair. "The scouts are patrolling the conservancy but they are powerless because the police will not intervene to remove the poachers," he says. Mr Stockil estimates that the 850,000-acre reserve has already lost thousands of antelope - killed by crude circular snares made with wire stolen from the perimeter fence.
His colleague, Mr Manyangadze, more accustomed to escorting tourists with clicking cameras, now finds he is waging a daily battle to protect the reserve's stocks. "The poachers have killed hundreds and hundreds of zebras, impala, kudu - anything they can get. They are selling the meat and they say they want the land."
Yesterday, the conservancy's 150 game scouts had been deployed to track an injured black rhino and one of its 300 giraffes, spotted with a "bell-bottom leg" caused by a snare injury. One of the reserve's 90 wild dogs has already been found dead in a snare, as have three cheetahs, two leopards, dozens of zebras and up to four giraffes. A tusk from an elephant which had apparently been shot was found to have been removed and the reserve's conservator, Graham Connear, believes rhino-horn traders have arrived in the area.
Zimbabwe's political crisis - which began in February as part of President Mugabe's ruthless campaign to secure a parliamentary majority for his party in June's elections - has claimed more than 30 human lives. Now, with his near-bankrupt government desperately pushing through an "accelerated resettlement programme", thousands are taking advantage of continuing confusion over land ownership in rural areas.
Mr Connear estimates that, at any one time, between 500 and 2,000 poachers from neighbouring lands are on the Save conservancy - a tract of land the size of Majorca - where two sections have recently been gazetted for government acquisition, even though they are officially listed as unsuitable for farming and are part of a designated reserve supported by the World Wide Fund For Nature.
In one part of the reserve, people claiming to be veterans of the Seventies war against white rule have cleared a vast area of land to build huts. They survive by selling poached meat in neighbouring villages and have begun planting maize even though little can be cultivated in the drought and flood-prone landscape.
The VHF radio in Mr Connear's office crackled into life as a game scout reported the latest of the poaching incidents: two men had been apprehended in the Mukwazi area with a dead porcupine and a hyrax. They had been tracking a warthog using nine dogs and bows and arrows. The scouts had shot three of the dogs and would hold the poachers in a cell until the police arrived.
Mr Connear telephoned Inspector Phiri. Yes, the policeman assured him, officers would collect the poachers the following day and charge them. "That does not happen every time," said Mr Connear. "Maybe things are improving."
The government has cause to act on the concerns of the wildlife lobby. Tourism - currently down to a trickle of regional visitors at reserves like Save and Victoria Falls - is a major foreign currency earner. In addition, Zimbabwe's European Union meat sales licence is in jeopardy because 14km of Save's perimeter fence has been destroyed by poachers, raising the possibility that foot-and-mouth disease in the reserve's 1,000-strong buffalo population could spread to cattle. Beef exports are worth Ł300m a year.
Save Valley Conservancy was created less than a decade ago, when 25 cattle breeders, whose businesses were failing because of a severe drought, amalgamated their land. The government gave the project its blessing and the international consortium which created the conservancy created a stakeholder scheme called Campfire under which local residents would make money from the sale of excess stock.
Today, Save (pronounced "Savay") has 800 elephants, 1,500 zebras, as well as lions, cheetahs, leopards and other predators, and 400 species of birds. But its greatest success has been in creating an environment in which more than 70 black rhinos - out of only 2,400 in the world - and 92 wild dogs (lycaon pictus) are thriving.
The smell of rotting meat pervades the forecourt outside Mr Stockil's office. By the door, he has two piles, each 8ft high, of circular wire snares found in the bush. Each of the death traps is no more complex than a coat hanger, with a loop at one end and enough wire at the other to tie around a tree. A few metres away, a pile of reeking skulls, bones and entrails are, he says, the remains of a giraffe and several antelope.
"What we are seeing is a systematic annihilation of the wildlife," said Mr Stockil.
"We do not know how the black rhino are doing because they are concentrated in an area where the war veterans have set up their main base camp and we are threatened if we try to go there. When the national parks staff came to assist us a month ago, the police refused to provide reinforcements because they said the poaching was a 'political' matter.
"If the poaching stops now, it will take us six months to clear up all the snares. We will need a seven-ton truck to remove them because there are now thousands of them and they are killing animals far faster than the poachers can collect the meat. The animals can sense the danger and have fled from the southern part of Senuko. In some areas, you are lucky if you see a squirrel."
Most Zimbabweans agree land reform is necessary in a country where the majority of the 12 million population lives in crowded "communal areas" with poor access to water or fertilisers. More than 100,000 people live in such conditions around Save. By contrast, 4,500 white farmers control the best land and grow lucrative tobacco and vegetable crops using European technology.
The site for Save Valley Conservancy was chosen specifically because its land is poor and Mr Manyangadze believes sheer greed is at work.
Yet the residents of the communal land bordering the reserve are poor and hungry, like Debuley Muzeondakaya who was apprehended by scouts yesterday with a friend, two dogs and a dead cane rat. "We just came to fish," said the 18-year-old. He has a genuine need for food.
Mr Manyangadze is unsympathetic. "They are thieves, they are not working for a living, and they are lying.
"We have a problem which is going to stay. People have discovered that there is meat here and hunting is more lucrative than farming maize. If the government gives people land but does not help them to farm it profitably, the poachers will just carry on," he said.
Save Valley Conservancy Fact Sheet
SIZE:845 044 acres (342123 sq. km)
SITUATION:
The South Eastern Lowveld of Zimbabwe, 60km fro Chiredzi, 160km from Masvingo and 10km from Birchenough Bridge.
MAJOR RIVERS:
Devure; Save; Mkwasine; Turgwe; and Msaizi Rivers.
NUMBER OF PROPERTIES:
Twenty one
ALTITUDE:
500 - 600 metres above sea level
CLIMATE:
Mean daily temps 32 - 35 degrees Celsius October to January and mean daily minimum 5 - 9 degrees Celsius June to July.
VEGETATION:
Mopane woodland and Acacia Combretum woodland; Riverine; Open grasslands
OBJECTIVES:
To develop sustainable wildlife utilisation to maximise economic, social and environmental benefits in the Conservancy and surrounding communities.
BACKGROUND:
Developed, originally, in the 1920's as the Devuli Ranch, an extensive cattle ranch. Adjoining ranches were developed in the 1970's. The drought in 1991/92, an un-viable cattle industry, and an initiative from the Beit Trust and WWF to set up a strong hold for the endangered black rhino precipitated the move from cattle to wildlife. A double perimeter fence to prevent the possible spread of foot and mouth disease, and the movement of animals to areas of human population was erected. Internal fences removed and various wildlife species re-introduced.
AIM:
To develop a system of sustainable utilisation of resources through increased biodiversity and ecotourism to benefit the conservancy with a knock-on effect to surrounding peasant communities.
DATE OF FORMATION:
June 1991
RE-INTRODUCED WILDLIFE SPECIES:
Black rhino; White rhino; Giraffe; Wildebeest; Zebra; Eland; Sable; Nyala; Warthog; Waterbuck; Buffalo; Elephant; Tsessebe; Ostrich; Lion; Cheetah and Wild dog moved on naturally.
WILDLIFE SPECIES PRESENT:
Specially protected: Black rhino; White rhino; Wild dog
Protected: Elephant; Leopard: Cheetah
General:
TOURISM:
At present there are 20 camps and lodges ranging from hunting camps to luxury safari lodges.
RESEARCH:
Currently long term studies of Black rhino; Wild dog; Hippo and Leopard.
SUPPORTING AGENCIES:
World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF); Beit Trust; Japanese Wildlife Research Centre; London Zoological Society, BP/Shell; International Finance Corporation (IFC).
RELATED ORGANISATION:
Save Valley Conservancy Trust- a stand alone community development vehicle to sponsor and promote involvement of local surrounding communities in economic and conservation oriented project. It involves the five surrounding Rural District councils and inter-relates with the conservancy through a carefully laid out structure.
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