This narrative was written by
Zimbabwean farmer Guy Watson-Smith in 2004, recounting his experiences at the
hands of General Solomon Mujuru. We are re-printing it as he wrote it at that
time. General Mujuru died in a fire earlier this month on August 17th. You can
read our obituary
for the General here.
Background.
Our farm in
Beatrice had been two smaller units, but was consolidated in the 1960’s, decades
before I bought it. It was designated in1997 for acquisition and then again in
2000, and of course we did what was legally our right, and proper to do, and
that was to launch a detailed and fully backed up objection to the Minister of
Agriculture. To this day we have not had a response and it must be fair to
assume that nobody in the Ministry has read, let alone considered our submission
or the thousands of others.
We bought our 1400
hectare farm in 1983, with Government funded Agricultural Finance Corporation
backing, 70 Kms. south of Harare near Beatrice. My wife and I devoted the next
14 years to extremely hard work and heavy investment in a Zimbabwe where black
and white worked together, the country produced surpluses of every commodity it
put its mind to, and phrases like “the Switzerland of Africa” and “the
breadbasket of Africa” were commonly heard.
Our farm became a
garden of production. In a relatively arid part of the country we managed to
capture water in a series of huge reservoirs built during the droughts of the
late 1980’s. By 1997 when the farm was first designated for compulsory
acquisition we had a model village of over 300 families employed full time on
the farm. We produced the largest ‘single-farm’ crop of tobacco in the country,
with all of it under irrigation, and more each year being committed to an
Israeli ‘drip’ system, for the most efficient use of all resources. The rest of
the arable land on the farm was under irrigated pastures. Our breeding herd of
460 simbra beef cattle had been bred over years, with the use of semen imported
from the USA, and introduced under a scientific programme of artificial
insemination which we ran. The non-arable area of the farm was fenced and we had
introduced viable breeding herds of all the 15 main species of plains game found
on the ‘highveld’ of Zimbabwe, including giraffe, sable antelope and waterbuck,
and numbering over 600 in total.
Unfortunately this
jewel was to prove too attractive for someone to resist just a few years hence,
however we remained blissfully unaware of the cruel twists that lay
ahead.
The strangest
thing was that from the beginning of the violent farm invasions in March 2000
until late in 2001 our farm was never interfered with by anyone, and we were
never hampered in our production.
Strange because I
was high profile amongst the commercial farmers, and perhaps too outspoken in my
condemnation of our government’s methods for my own good. I spoke regularly and
without fear to the press any time they asked me to, I was a thorn in the side
of the governor of the province (Mugabe’s cousin David
Karimanzira), the provincial administrator, the police, ministers, and
the highest ZANU PF figure in the province, General Mujuru. I met with the
national ‘war veterans’ leadership, including Chenjerai ‘Hitler’ Hunzvi before
he died, and later Patrick Nyarhwata, the diplomatic corps, and the British High
Commissioner.
I visited the
Foreign Office in Whitehall in August 2000, in January 2001 and in August 2001,
and put the case of our country’s farmers to the head of the Africa desk Dr.
Andrew Pocock on each occasion, and appeared on numerous television and radio
interviews which I actively courted, because I wished to tell the story of what
was happening at home in the hope that it would make a difference. I had
meetings with numerous British and Euro M.P’s. and politicians and briefed them
too.
I and one other
farmer presented to and were questioned on the land issue by the Commonwealth
Foreign Ministers in Harare. Secretary General Don MacKinnon was there, as was
Baroness Amos, and the Foreign Ministers of Kenya, South Africa, Canada,
Australia, Jamaica, Zimbabwe, and one or two others.
9\18 and the next three
months.
Eviction. Deception.
Threats.
It was seven days
after 9/11, 2001, and we had just returned from a trip to Europe with the
family, to the horror of the Twin Towers. We were still trying to absorb the
absolute enormity of that awful event, when our world crashed
too.
A car pulled up in
our drive at home, and out stepped the awful Comrade Zhou, so
well known to me. He was with two other well dressed and menacing individuals
that I had never seen before. One of them was huge, and because I had never seen
them before I knew that they were not local, and I knew that they were on
serious business. The two said nothing. We sat down at the table on the patio,
my wife and I, our two farm managers and the three of them.
Zhou said “you
leave this farm now.” I protested and asked that we should perhaps discuss the
issue….
He replied, “You
are not listening – we do not want what happened to Dunn to happen to you
now.”
I saw the menace
in the eyes of the three of them and felt cold. I knew then without any doubt
that the only thing to do was to go. We were given permission to collect the
clothes we needed, and two hours to leave.
I had no idea
where the order had come from.
Sherry and her
girls were still living with us although she thankfully had left early with
chores to do in Harare that morning. However she was effectively evicted too,
and had to find somewhere else to live. She had not been able to live at her
home in the 16 months since Alan’s murder, or to move her assets, but that is
another story.
The next months
were a blur of confused messages, hopes raised and then dashed. We lived with my
father in law in Harare and I continued with my duties as CFU chairman of the
province which took me out on meaningful business most days into the farming
areas, but I spent an equal amount of time negotiating with authorities to be
allowed to return to my farm with the family. The governor and the provincial
administrator were unhelpful and normally refused to see me, the ministers were
polite and made empty promises that they would ‘look into’ our case. The most
helpful person who was always available when I requested a meeting was the
highest person in the ZANU PF hierarchy of the province, and widely regarded as
the third most powerful person in the country – none other than General
Mujuru. He always left me hopeful that there was some light at the end
of the tunnel for us, and encouraged me to continue through my managers to plant
a full crop of tobacco, to invest in the soil. Between September and December we
planted 85 hectares of tobacco under irrigation, short of our normal 140
hectares, but a substantial crop none the less.
It is in hindsight
quite amazing how slowly one understands what one does not wish to
understand.
My parents were on
the farm until mid November, my Father neither able to walk nor speak due to
brain surgery, and my Mother attempting to cope alone. The General allowed them
to move with their personal belongings into Harare, but still I could not go
there to help them. My sister flew from Cape Town and in a day moved them and
everything they owned off the farm and out of their home for
ever.
I was expressly
forbidden to go to the farm for any reason. On 21st November I was
told by the General that I should go there to meet Zhou, so my wife and I left
Harare – she was very keen to visit our home and the pets while I discussed I
was not sure what, with Comrade Zhou. We were part way there when my mobile
phone rang, and it was him to say that I should not approach the farm under any
circumstances. I told him that the General had authorized it, and he was plain
and clear. “If you go to Alamein Farm you will be shot.” We returned to
Harare.
I still had no
idea who was behind my banishment from the farm, who was instrumental behind the
scenes. And the most helpful person to me – the only person in authority who
would still speak to me was the General.
The horrible penny
drops.
On the morning of
5th December, two and a half months after leaving home, I received a
call from the General: “Meet me at Zitac” (the tobacco auction floors on the
outskirts of town) “I am waiting for you.”
I immediately
drove there, and he climbed into my car with me and said we would go to the farm
together. In the fifty minutes it took us to get there he explained to me that
he had family close to Alamein in the Mondoro Communal Land, his step mother and
half brothers and sisters still lived there and he had driven through my farm
many times over the years. I began to fear that perhaps my efforts to irrigate
the arid kalahari sands we farmed on had been too successful! Perhaps the sight
of fat cattle knee deep in irrigated pastures, and lush dark green tobacco crops
as far as the eye could see had been too much to resist. I began to understand,
slowly and reluctantly during that 50 minutes, that I had been duped. I began to
understand why it was that my farm had been left alone while other seemingly
less valuable properties all around had been occupied and vandalized in the last
year and a half, and their owners harassed, barricaded or worse by ‘war vets’
and their followers during the previous two years. I had not shared their
disruptions despite my high profile and vigorous activities on behalf of farmers
in the province.
The crashing
realization of what was happening was confirmed when he told me what was
required of me when we got to the farm. I should address the labour force who
would be gathered and waiting for us, to tell them that they “must work as well
and as hard as before, but from now on they will be under different
management.”
Still the General
would not admit that he was taking the farm. Zhou was to be the next manager,
and my managers were to remain to work under him. One later declined, while the
other stayed on. Zhou and one of the two who had forced us to leave the farm
back on 9/18 (the big man) were there to meet us, and I addressed the labour and
their families who had all been gathered, as I was instructed to do. Oh! The
sadness! I had known many of these people all of my life, had known their
parents, their ups and downs, and we had created wonderful things together – yet
I knew then that this was goodbye for ever. I saw tears in the eyes of some of
them but could not approach them for a personal word or handshake or hug because
if I spotlighted them they would likely become victims. I was not allowed to go
to my house to see our dogs or say goodbye, but was escorted the 17 Km to
Beatrice village and onto the road back to Harare by Zhou and his team, now with
the General in their car rather than in mine. My job was done. I have not seen
my farm or home again.
I did still have
the presence of mind to extract one agreement from the General and Zhou while I
was there. That we be allowed to collect our personal belongings, photographs
and furniture. My wife was given permission the next day to go to the farm and
pack up our house. I was not allowed to go with her or help her. Again I was
threatened by Comrade Zhou in his now familiar unsubtle way that if I went I
would be shot and the removals truck would be burned.
Goodbye
Alamein.
On the
6th of December, the very next day, Vicky went to the farm with our
two teenagers Adam and Alice and their cousin Oliver. After an hour alone with
their tears in her beloved garden, the four of them with the kind help of two
neighbour’s wives and close friends, began to pack. Another neighbour came over
during the morning and shot the horse and our faithful old dog Lady. She was too
old to get used to another home but dear Sherry took Romeo, our three year old
bull mastiff and her faithful friend of the last 16 months.
It took all of
Thursday and Friday, and the removals truck finally got away on Saturday at
lunch time. But not without drama!
Zhou and his team
were in evidence throughout the packing up – a brooding and threatening
presence. On the final morning our sixteen year old son Adam and his cousin
spent many hours catching and boxing our collection of exotic birds and
wildfowl. He loaded them all carefully for transportation to their new home with
a fellow collector, on the back of my farm pickup truck. He was then informed by
Zhou that the pickups could not leave as they were a part of the farm, and Adam
had no option but to release all the birds back onto their ponds and into their
aviaries.
In the final hours
Vicky wanted to pack the gun cabinet containing seven rifles. She was prevented
from doing so, and informed that the keys had to remain with Zhou. She called me
on the phone and both she and I separately phoned the member in charge of the
local police station, who agreed that as the firearms were licensed in our name,
a police vehicle would come and collect them for safe keeping. The police never
arrived in spite of numerous subsequent calls. In the end, Vicky had no option
but to flee with the keys of the weapons cabinet, and the removals vehicles
driving in front of her, when she realized that Zhou had gone to the nearby
store to get some lunch. The result was that not everything was packed on the
trucks – some deep freezes and other bigger items were left behind. She dropped
the keys at the police station on the way through Beatrice where I was waiting
for her.
Realisation: The full extent of the theft
.
I continued to
speak to the General as I wanted his permission to move my assets from the farm.
Land acquisition was one thing and it seemed that our government was supporting
the seizure of land by the ruling party elite, but I had not heard that they
were entitled to my tractors and generators, vehicles and equipment, fertiliser
and chemicals, fuels and livestock. Apart from the valuable and sophisticated
equipment I had my 460 head of prime beef and 600 head of wild game still on the
farm. That was surely mine. And what was to happen with the crop in the ground,
now three quarters grown on my inputs?
It was known
throughout the district by now that if Watson-Smith came to Beatrice he was fair
game. He would be shot, and if he tried to have assets removed from the farm the
trucks would be burned. It had been announced at a mass meeting of the labour
force held on Alamein by none other than the General soon after Vicky had left
with our furniture. I never had any doubt that it was not an idle
threat.
The legal system without
teeth.
My last resort was
the High Court of Zimbabwe.
I did not know it
then but my family and I had only two weeks left in Zimbabwe.
My first priority
was to pay all of my labour what they were due – termination pay and benefits,
leave pay and long service gratuities. We spent many days calculating it all,
with the help of the Agricultural Labour Bureau and the Ministry of Labour, and
obtained their seal of approval that all was correct and in fact substantially
more than that required by law. Finally on 19th December, as I could
not do it myself, I hired a security company to take the cash to the farm,
pre-counted and individually bagged, to pay the labour force. I sent a duplicate
of all the calculations to General Mujuru, and left another with my
lawyers.
Simultaneously I
prepared with my lawyer and advocate to appeal to the High Court for the return
of my moveable assets. Affidavits were prepared and I decided to cite four
respondents in my urgent application: General Mujuru as the occupier of my farm
and therefore the person directly in control of them, and his enforcer Comrade
Zhou, as well as the two most senior government personnel involved in the land
seizures nationwide, Joseph Made the Minister of Agriculture, and Ignatius
Chombo another hard-line Minister in Mugabe’s cabinet in charge of Local
Housing, but more importantly the Chairman of the National Land Task
Force.
Fears began to be
expressed for my safety and that of my family by friends and professional and
respected contacts. No individual farmer had taken government ministers and
generals to court in this way before, and this is a very powerful trio. Zhou was
an add-on (evil and dangerous but not important).
A further curious
thing happened that was chilling in the circumstances. During this period I took
a phone call from the General personally. He told me that it had come to his
attention, through contacts that he would not name, that I had been to Greece to
“buy vehicles for the MDC”. Did I know that there was a law against foreign
funding of political parties and why was I doing it? Of course the logic of the
setup was impeccable – I had just been to Greece on holiday in August, and my
passport had the stamps to prove it. It is a well known tactic of our government
to arrest people before weekends or public holidays to make it almost impossible
for the accused person to access a lawyer or a judge for bail purposes for a
good few days. Many opposition activists, journalists and farmers have fallen
prey to this nasty trick, and spent long weekends and more undergoing torture
and interrogation. I imagined, quite possibly correctly, that I was to be
arrested just before the long Christmas / New Year break on trumped up charges
and held until after New Year at least! The charges of course were entirely
ludicrous but how was I going to prove that over the festive
season?
I took advice
widely, quietly and quickly and decided that it would be safer to leave the
country before filing the court application. We slipped out early on the morning
of the 21st December. Once away I phoned my lawyer and the urgent
application was filed in the High Court later the same day. My plan was to stay
away for a few weeks to let the dust settle.
Our case
was heard on 28th December in the High Court of Zimbabwe and the
ruling was in our favour. The
Judge instructed the Sheriff of the High Court to proceed to the farm with my
agents to remove the moveable assets. I had appointed four agents, one to remove
the cattle, one the game, one the equipment, fertilizers, chemicals, fuel and
vehicles, and the fourth a specialist, to remove the huge Modro Bulk Tobacco
Curers (nine of them requiring a low-loader each). I had organized all aspects
of storage facilities and/or auction before I left the
country.
A day or two after
New Year the sheriff went to the farm with his court order, an escort of police
from Beatrice police station, the first two low-loaders, and a couple of my
agents to begin their work. They were greeted by Comrade Zhou in a frenzied
reception of his arranging, and were literally driven from the farm in fear of
their lives. The Sheriff’s vehicle was manhandled into facing back the way it
had come, with threats of burning of all the vehicles. The convoy retreated as
fast as they could never to return and the police did nothing to assist the
sheriff and the course of justice either then or at any time since. The
inspector in charge (Tarugwisa) was well known as a loyal ZANU
PF functionary, and the entire police force and system of justice in the country
had anyway been perverted in the preceding two years. This episode was simply
further evidence of it.
The High
Court, the sheriff and the police therefore proved
powerless against a small mob of
venom-spitting and threatening individuals. The authority behind this seemingly
insignificant group of paid thugs is clearly above the law of the land, a fact
that has been proved so many times that I am sure it was naïve to have expected
the order to have been executed, but what else can one do? Where else is there
to turn to?
Anarchy.
The power and the
fury of General Mujuru and his man on the ground Comrade Zhou began to be seen
and felt.
On January
9th 2002 a truck load of approximately 70 individuals from the farm
organized, terrorised and led by Zhou’s men traveled into the centre of Harare.
One block from Parliament in the very heart of Harare the police watched or
turned away as the mob rushed up the seven flights of stairs to the offices of
my legal representatives – a major city law firm. They pushed half a dozen of
the partners around but found my lawyer, assaulted him and threatened his
family. The excuse for the attack was that I had underpaid them and that he
represented me and should therefore pay some silly figure amounting to millions
to my ‘cheated’ labour force. It was the gathering of a crowd of press
photographers that caused the mob to return to their truck and home, and perhaps
prevented further assault and even perhaps the abduction of my lawyer. The
police were not interested in intervening and did not.
It was an
orchestrated attack, and there is evidence that many of the participants were
both unwilling and confused by the whole adventure. However the effect was
shattering. Lawyers were proved not to be able to represent their clients in
safety, and my lawyer has since emigrated to Canada. I had serious concern that
I personally would become “unrepresentable” because of the danger that I posed
to any lawyer or firm representing me. It remains a grave concern
today.
The effect on my
own family has been equally shattering. Although Vicky and I planned to stay
away for a while, the intention was to fly our two children back to Zimbabwe to
school and we had bought them tickets for Saturday the 12th January,
to start school on the following Monday. Adam was to enter his final year of
school, to write “A” Levels and Alice was to write her “O” Levels at the end of
the year. A critical year for them both. We had asked a close friend to act in
our absence as their guardian, to collect them from the airport, get them to
school on Monday, and look after all their needs until we could return –
hopefully soon.
The news of the
attack on our lawyer and his colleagues sent shock waves through the country,
and the next morning no fewer than three of our closest friends advised us not
to send the children back. “If they can get at your lawyer in a city law firm,
they can get at your children in their schools” was the message. The friend who
had agreed to be responsible for our children phoned to say she was terribly
worried and felt she could not accept the weight of responsibility. She was
absolutely correct – they all were and on that day we were forced to change our
plans and our lives for ever. We had absolutely no choice!
Our children have
started again in a new and strange system and country and have adapted and
performed like absolute heroes. Quite fantastic.
Vicky and I have
with enormous help and encouragement from loving friends and family started a
new career and our lives are once again more or less on track.
We desperately
miss our former life and our many friends, but we try to spend a lot more time
looking forwards than backwards.
Alamein Farm
today.
The General and
his men reaped the 85 hectares of tobacco I had planted. In addition to our
state of the art equipment, 10 000 liters of diesel and a few hundred tons of
coal were already on the farm when he took it over, as was all the fertilizer
and the chemicals he would need to bring the crop to market. So his investment
was negligible, but he sold the crop across the auction floors to his own
account anyway. I believe he owes me that money.
I do not know
where all my equipment or livestock are today, but I am informed that some
farming continues, albeit on a much reduced scale. Very few of the 300 families
that lived in our village remain on the farm, and for many months after our
departure it was Zhou’s policy that any person who fled, as some did, had his
house burned down. The intended message was clear – “if you go you don’t come
back.” One needs an understanding of the atmosphere of intimidation and fear,
the unemployment at 70%, and inflation at 300%, to grasp properly the
psychological effect of this sort of campaign on simple and vulnerable folk
without any security in their lives. It is a true and living reign of terror –
it is the only way it can be described.
General Mujuru
lives with his wife in my parents’ house. His wife is the powerful inner circle
Cabinet Minister Joyce Mujuru, her portfolio being “water development” although
I forget the exact title. She like her husband is a ‘war hero’ and she fought
under the ‘nom de guerre’ Tauraii Rhopa Nhongo, Nhongo being her husband’s name
at the time and Tauraii Rhopa translating approximately as “spill blood”. Their
son lives in our house now. Another irony of which there are so many is that
their younger daughter is at the private school our Alice was forced to leave,
and amongst the things that she had to cope with in her forced uprooting into a
foreign country and school system was the thought that this strange girl would
be sleeping in her beloved bedroom, the only one she had ever known. We assured
her that it was most unlikely that the girl would have Alice’s bedroom, and
anyway, it really wouldn’t be her bedroom without all her personal things in it,
so it wouldn’t matter. But we quietly wept for her.
Where to now?
My family has
invested everything we have produced for two generations into what remained
behind at Alamein.
General Mujuru
must believe he has a future after Mugabe – he is not yet 60 years
old.
I wrote to him
recently and suggested that if he were to pay for what he has taken from my
family I would return my title deeds to him, and the farm and the assets he took
would become his. I would do it with sadness because the farm was never for
sale, however today’s reality is not an easy one for us, and life must go on. I
asked him to respond by the middle of July 2003 to my offer, and I have not had
any response, somewhat predictably.
I must advance my
claim now not only for the ultimate benefit of my own family but because the
injustice that I have tried to portray accurately and as it happened is not
entirely uncommon, although most farmers who have been stripped of their land,
homes and livelihoods have at least been able to salvage most of their moveable
assets. Many are still caught up in a terrible position somewhere between fear
and expediency in that they are still there trying to salvage something of their
life’s work from within the country. They therefore can not afford to or risk
raising their voices! But they are there.
For my part
however, my family had a farm, a business and a home. We bought it with the help
of loans (now paid off) from the Government Agricultural Finance Corporation,
post independence. Post Mugabe coming to power! We worked very long and hard,
produced huge surpluses of food and exports, and paid our taxes. We were good
employers of many people who lived in clean and healthy villages, with schools,
clinics and food to eat.
All of that has
been stolen “in broad daylight” and it is inconceivable to me that the
perpetrator will get away with it in the 21st century. Can
he?
Land redistribution. A final
word.
It is a terrible
tragedy that the guise of equitable land reform still provides Mugabe with cover
to hide behind for his evil maneuvering, when the reality as I have seen it and
described it is so very far removed from anything just or
equitable.
On my farm in
Bearice there were “300 farmers” (and one “white” farm owner it is true). None
of those 300 farmers have received any land in the so-called redistribution
process, not to mention support in the pursuit of production – tillage and
fertilizer and other assistance has been loudly promised by the
government.
Instead the land
has been allowed as “payoff” to party faithful and very few of them are farmers.
This sort of corruption is the greatest scourge, and yet it is accepted by many
African governments as the norm, and praised and rewarded with high and
prestigious positions and recognition, with speaking engagements and standing
ovations for Mugabe the architect of the evil. And even more surprising, his
behavior is still at least tolerated in the West.
This small story
is only one, and there are many others yet to be told.
Guy and Vicky Watson-Smith –
2004
This entry was posted by Sokwanele on Thursday, August
25th, 2011 at 1:35 pm.