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ISSUE 1880 Tuesday 18 July 2000 The Daily News
NATIONAL NEWS Tuesday 18 , July

Farmers’ union boss wants experienced workers resettled first

7/18/00 9:46:21 AM (GMT +2)

Staff Reporter

THE land reform programme will increase the country’s economic problems unless the government resettles experienced farm workers first on farms acquired from the commercial farmers, says Philip Munyanyi.

The secretary-general of the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers’ Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ) said, along with the farm workers, the government should give preference to agricultural college graduates with the potential to sustain production on the farms.
“We are not against land resettlement,” said Munyanyi.
“What we want is an orderly approach which will benefit deserving people.”
On Saturday, the government began resettling people on 200 of the 804 commercial farms acquired for resettlement. This followed amendments to the Constitution and Land Acquisition Act which enables government to designate 804 farms.
Munyanyi said: “If all those farms are given to the people without financial back-up to develop them for commercial agriculture, then our economy will be seriously battered.”
Munyanyi said it would be tragic to destroy a major foreign currency earner such as the agricultural sector.
“The government must give priority to farm workers, who are already experienced in agriculture, when giving land to the people,” he said.
The Vice-President, Joseph Msika, said the beneficiaries of the settlement programme would be selected by committees made up of traditional leaders, councillors, representatives of war veterans, district and provincial administrators and governors.
Munyanyi said about 75 000 farm workers would lose their jobs as a result of the farm acquisitions.
He said: “Some of the workers have lived on the farms all their lives and have children in schools at the farms. They should be compensated, but the current law does not provide for compensation of affected farm workers and their families.” He said if the government did not address the problem of displaced farm workers, the programme would leave thousands destitute.
“The land, under the current programme, is being given to people under chiefs and headmen. There are no such structures on farms which means the thousands of workers and their families will not benefit from the resettlement,” Munyanyi said.
“The government may be repeating exactly what the colonial settlers did. We are going to have another problem when the farm workers regroup and claim their right to resettlement,” he said.

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UK Telegraph - Wednesday 19 July 2000


ISSUE 1880 Tuesday 18 July 2000 Zimbabwe farmers strike over squatters

By David Blair at Irenedale farm

WHITE Zimbabwean farmers raised the stakes in the land crisis yesterday by shutting down their operations and demanding that the police restore order. The first concerted protest against the wave of illegal farm invasions, which has affected almost 1,700 properties since land invasion began in February, was mounted by around 40 landowners in Glendale district. The striking farmers, who say they have "nothing left to lose", employ around 10,000 people.

Scores of neighbouring farmers are likely to join the strike in an area known as the breadbasket of Zimbabwe, about 50 miles north of the capital Harare. Agriculture forms the backbone of the national economy and their protest will be impossible for Robert Mugabe's government to ignore.

The Glendale farmers said the final straw was the militant behaviour of squatters over the past week and the inaction of the police. Since last Thursday, mobs have broken into Kilmer farm and ordered Chris Hart to leave his land before surrounding his house and lighting a bonfire on the lawn.

Gangs have invaded Heyshott farm three times and told John Sole, whose 1,000 employees run the region's most productive property, to leave and never return. On Friday they broke through his fence and surrounded his house, shouting death threats, while four policemen stood by and explained they were present "only to observe".

Verona farm has been surrounded by mobs and on Mutoko farm a gang of 40 ordered the labourers to stop all work, before breaking into the homestead, searching it from top to bottom and building a bonfire on the verandah. Squatters still control Mutoko, and Nick Brooke, the owner, has been forced to flee to Harare.

His plight has brought the entire farming community out on strike. Chris Thorne, who owns the nearby Irenedale farm, said: "The situation is that all the Glendale farmers are stopping work until order returns on Mutoko. Unless the police intervene and the situation there is returned to normal, we have a mass shutdown."

All the Glendale farmers joined the strike at 6am yesterday without hesitation. Irrigation systems have been switched off, workers are staying at home and crops will neither be reaped nor sown. Mr Thorne said: "We have reached the point where we have nothing more to lose.

"We can't go on like this. We can't live or farm under these conditions. We have to act now and I believe we will be successful because in the end good always wins over evil. And what has been happening here is evil." The grimly determined landowners have acted on their own initiative and the Commercial Farmers' Union has not approved the strike.

Mr Thorne said: "All we want is for the rule of law to be restored. "None of us has any problem with land reform. We just want order. That's the bottom line; finish. Until they do that, we are shut down." Irenedale's 2,500 acres were deserted yesterday and rolling fields of wheat, crucial for Zimbabwe's bread supplies, waved in the wind, untended by any workers.

Dusty tracks between farms, normally filled with tractors and lorries, were empty. The 40 farms employ 10,000 people and have a turnover of £17 million, vital earnings for Zimbabwe's crisis-hit economy. At immediate risk are 35,000 tons of wheat due for delivery to the silos.

Ian McKersie, whose Davaar farm has shut down, is fully aware of the risks. He said: "We are all under financial pressure. But we have to do something now, before the situation becomes irretrievable. We can't allow this thing to drag on. We have to act and everyone has responded. I don't know any farmer who has been reluctant."

Farmers in other areas of Zimbabwe were quick to applaud the strike. But some fear an explosive reaction from Mr Mugabe, who could accuse the landowners of holding the country to ransom to protect their vested interests.

Mr McKersie rejects this charge. He said: "This has nothing to do with land reform, which we all agree with. It is simply about law and order, which is something every citizen has a right to expect."


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NATIONAL NEWS Tuesday 18 , July

Mugabe names deputy ministers

7/18/00 8:49:50 AM (GMT +2)

Political Reporter

PRESIDENT Mugabe has retained Dr David Parirenyatwa as the deputy minister of Health and Child Welfare.

Shuvai Mahofa, MP for Gutu South, bounces back as the deputy minister of Youth Development, Gender and Employment Creation.
Sources within Zanu PF said the deputy ministers had been handed their letters of appointment at a meeting held at the party's headquarters in Harare yesterday. By the time of going to press officials in the President's Office said they were not in a position to release the names.
Olivia Muchena is said to have been appointed a Minister of State in Vice- President Joseph Msika's office while Chen Chimutengwende, the former Minister of Information was said to have been appointed the Minister of State in the office of the Vice-President, Simon Muzenda.
Other deputies are: Flora Bhuka, (Higher Education), Aneas Chigwedere (Education, Sports and Culture), Rugare Gumbo (Home Affairs), Charles Majange (Industry and International Trade), Kembo Mohadi (Mines and Energy), Reuben Marumahoko (Rural Resources and Water Development), Kenneth Manyonda (Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare), Paul Mangwana, (Transport and Communications) and Chris Kuruneri (Finance and Economic Development).
A deputy was said to be due for appointment in the Ministry of Defence but the name was not immediately available.
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ISSUE 1879
Monday 17 July 2000

Mugabe accused of vandalism as land grab begins

By David Blair in Harare

ZIMBABWE'S white farmers awaited their fate yesterday after President Robert Mugabe embarked on the fastest, cheapest and most chaotic approach to the seizure of their property, condemned by landowners as "official vandalism". Desperate to hand out white farms as rapidly as possible, Vice President Joseph Msika launched the land grab with great fanfare on Saturday and promised that 200 properties would be seized "immediately". But he was unable to say which farms would be targeted and no landowners have yet received occupation orders.

The Commercial Farmers' Union expects to receive a list today and believes the expropriations will proceed later this week. Meanwhile, squatters who are illegally occupying more than 1,100 properties, are hammering at the gates of farmhouses and ordering the owners to leave their land. In the Centenary area, 90 miles north of Harare, 36 farmers had been given ultimatums by yesterday.

Squatters trapped one farmer in his home yesterday afternoon. Greg McMurray, who owns Rianbuck Farm near Centenary, was forced to retreat inside his house when militant invaders objected to his labourers returning to work.

Dave McCallum, whose Annandale Farm near Shamva has been occupied by 40 invaders, has been given four days to vacate his property. He said: "You can't talk with these guys, they're totally unreasonable I don't know how this thing is going to end. I really have no idea. It's the uncertainty that's the worst."

The squatters demanded that Mr McCallum divide his farm into small plots and give each to a black family. This approach to resettlement, known as the "A1 villagised model", has become official policy and Mr Msika described it as "the government's top priority." Farms will be divided into 15 acre plots on which households will be resettled immediately.

Apart from water, no infrastructure will be provided - families will have to build their own shelters and could find themselves completely isolated, miles from the nearest road. How they will receive seed and fertiliser is unclear.

A commercial farm that once exported goods and employed hundreds of people will be transformed into a peasant collective. A leading farmer said: "This is just official vandalism. It will rip the heart out of the agricultural industry. What it means is an extension of subsistence, peasant farming, which will be disastrous for the economy." Zimbabwe's loss of export earnings and employment could also be disastrous.

Farmers point out that resettlement might create more losers than winners: the 200 farms earmarked for seizure probably employ 40,000 workers and, including their families, at least 160,000 people could be dependent on their success. But the government only proposes to resettle 30,000 people on the acquired land.

The leading farmer said: "The great unanswered question is what happens to the black workers already on the farms? No-one knows. The absurdity is that more black people could lose from this whole scheme than win."

A constitutional amendment passed in April has stripped farmers of their right to full compensation - nothing will be paid for the land itself, only for "improvements" such as roads or buildings. The government has given no details of when or how these payments will be made. This fast and cheap approach will ensure that donor countries refuse any support for resettlement and steer clear of Zimbabwe.

John Robertson, an independent economist, said: "If we go ahead with these seizures, we could find it impossible to get back on terms with the international institutions whose support we desperately need."

Mr Mugabe has announced a new cabinet. Only seven members of the old one have survived and veterans such as Emmerson Mnangagwa, the outgoing Justice Minister, have lost their jobs. Simba Makoni, a respected businessman, is the new Finance Minister

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NEWS Tuesday 18 , July

War vets invade Beatrice gold mine

7/18/00 8:45:43 AM (GMT +2)

Staff Reporter

ABOUT 15 suspected war veterans invaded disused Joyce Gold Mine in Beatrice on Friday night threatening to take over houses of the mine managers and workers.

Police in Beatrice were called to the mine to control the war veterans after the ex-combatants allegedly harassed the general manager, Tony Langerman.
They demanded keys to the workshop, offices and eight houses occupied by the managers. The police officers protected Langerman from further harassment.
The war veterans allocated themselves workers' houses on Sunday morning after ordering the workers out, said a worker who refused to be named.
One of the workers left the mine the following day. More were planning to leave, he said.
“We are in a dilemma,” he said. “While we desperately need jobs that might come about when the mine is resuscitated under a new owner, we fear attacks by the war veterans. We don't want to lose the little property we have.”
The war veterans arrived in two Nissan Sunnys, a Nissan twincab, a Mazda 323, and a Peugeot 504, said the worker's wife.
She said three of the war veterans remained at the mine. The three invaders were living in a house belonging to Bigboy Nkomo, the mine's former overseer.
Seven other houses belonging to the mine's former managers, however, remained unoccupied, she said.
Joyce Mine is situated close to Roma Mine which the suspected ex-combatants have not invaded. The two mines form the Norman Levin Gold Mines group. Both were shut down in September, leaving 700 workers jobless. A few workers have remained on the mines to wind up operations.

Joyce Mine's movable property and equipment were sold by public auction last Friday. The mine had stopped operations the previous day.
Meanwhile, three commercial farmers have fled their farms in Guruve after a group of people, suspected to be war veterans, threatened them.
Craig Deal, one of the farmers, said on Sunday farmers in Guruve South were threatened and ordered to leave their farms.
He said three had already left, but the farms had not been occupied.
“The situation is tense and frightening. The farmers are taking no chances and they have not waited to find out what kind of threat would be carried out if they did not leave their farms,” he said.
Deal refused to identify the affected farmers.
Police in Guruve refused to comment, saying they did not deal with such issues through the Press.
Deal, however, said the police were helpful.
He said there had been no major disturbances in the farming operations as work was continuing on the farms.
Another farmer, Ivor Bowen, has remained on his farm despite daily threats. He said: “Even today I was told to leave, but I am not leaving. The police have assured me they will help. I told the people who came here that I was not going to come out of the house. They said the land belonged to them and threatened unspecified action if I did not move out.”
His son, Peter, who owns a farm in Guruve, left his farm with his wife after a group of about 60 people called last Friday and told them to leave.
War veteran leaders could not be reached for comment.
Violent invasions have been reported in Mashonaland Central and East provinces.
Farmers said they were even more apprehensive after President Mugabe abolished the Ministry responsible for War Veterans when he announced his new Cabinet last Saturday.
The farmers feared they could be victimised by war veterans angry that, after they were allegedly used by Zanu PF in the pre-election terror campaign, they had now lost their ministry.
Despite the announcement by the government to settle people on 200 farms soon, war veterans have refused to leave occupied farms.
Alfred Jackson and his wife, Sandra, have been living in Harare since the war veterans ordered them to leave their farm, Heresford Estate in Centenary, in May. Yesterday, Sandra said they were not sure the war veterans would allow them back. The war veterans have threatened to remove their property from the farmhouse, now occupied by one of the ex-combatants.
She said: “We do not know whether they have carried out their threat to remove the property. They said they wanted us to remove the property by last Sunday. I am not sure they will allow us back. We have nowhere to put the property if we were to remove it. We might have to put it in storage.”
The Jacksons left the designated farm before the government had paid $18,2 million compensation as ordered by the Supreme Court.
The government has insisted on paying $5 million only.
In a separate development, David Coleman, a farmer in Concession, was allegedly assaulted by suspected war veterans yesterday as farmers receive an increasing number of ultimatums from the ex-combatants to move off their land.
Coleman, 66, was yesterday given up to today to leave the farm before he was allegedly assaulted by the group of war veterans. He sustained a cut on the head, his wife said.
She said about 200 war veterans were camped at the farmhouse, most of them on the verandah.
When The Daily News went to Coleman's home, the war veterans could be heard drumming and singing in the background.
Coleman's wife, clearly out of breath, said: “We are so scared. It's an explosive situation. My husband has been assaulted. His arm is bleeding.”
The war veterans, she said, were demanding that the farmer and his family should go back to England.
The farm has not been designated.
She said the group stormed the farm led by Thomas Majuru, who has featured prominently in farm invasions in Mashonaland Central. Coleman had to call the police.
Three police officers were at the farm but were being unhelpful, she said. Coleman's son, Gary, said the family was under serious threat.
People suspected of assaulting Coleman were denying the offence and the police had not made arrests by late yesterday afternoon, he said.
Wayne Bvudzijena, the police spokesman, said he did not have details about the goings-on at the farm.
More and more farmers continued to be threatened by suspected war veterans, particularly in Mashonaland Central.
The Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU) has warned farmers to exercise extreme caution.
CFU said owners of at least nine farms have been given ultimatums to move off their land.
In its reports on invasions, CFU said owners of Mavhuradonha, Chibali, Sherwood, Bretton, Kingstone, Devril, Ria Dora, Dolphin Park, Richlands and Everton farms in Mashonaland Central had been given deadlines to vacate their properties.
CFU said the owner of Nieuveld Farm and Nteto Park has been told he could only have half of the farms.
Tim Henwood, the CFU president, said the situation was extremely volatile.
“We are aware that the war vets have their own agenda with regard to land reform and that does not necessarily coincide with the government programme,” said Henwood.
“We understood that a number of farms in each province were to be identified for acquisition and this would signal the launch of the 'fast-track' approach to land reform and the phased withdrawal of war vets from other farms.”
The government at the weekend said it would resettle people on 200 of the acquired farms.
This would include moving war veterans to the acquired farms.
However, two days later war veterans remained on invaded farms issuing ultimatums to farmers.

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White Farmers Shut Down in Protest
The Associated Press - Jul 18 2000 4:03PM ET
GLENDALE, Zimbabwe (AP) - Angry white farmers in this key cotton- and food-producing area shut down operations Tuesday, protesting a lack of help from police during Zimbabwe's 5-month-old land occupation.
Silence fell over normally bustling fields as irrigation sprays were shut off and thousands of cotton pickers and farm hands stopped work. The only ongoing task was the milking of dairy cows.
``We are making this a passive protest to try and get police to react and restore law and order,'' said Dave Jenkins, a spokesman for 60 farmers in this district 50 miles north of the capital, Harare.
Ruling party militants began occupying white-owned farms in February. President Robert Mugabe called it a justified demonstration against unfair distribution of land in a country where a few thousand whites own one-third of the fertile farmland.
Mugabe has ordered police not to intervene to stop the occupations.
Since Thursday, four Glendale district farmers have received death threats from militants and squatters occupying their properties. Several other farmers were told to hand over their land to the occupiers. And assaults and intimidation of workers and their families have intensified in recent days, Jenkins said.
Calls for police intervention have been mostly ignored.
``It's becoming untenable. What we are saying is: 'Enough is enough. We can't carry on like this,''' Jenkins said.
For months, the Commercial Farmers Union, representing about 4,000 white land owners, has urged farmers not to retaliate with force and has repeatedly condemned the failure by police to protect its members.
Last month, farm leaders estimated that one-fifth of the tobacco crop, the nation's biggest foreign currency earner, had been lost to farm disruptions. Wheat production was also hurt, leading to forecasts of bread shortages.
Some crops could be irreparably damaged if the current shutdown lasts more than three days, he said.
Jenkins said the farmers agreed to protest after militants blockaded the 1,440-acre corn and cotton farm of Nick Brooke on Friday and threatened to kill him if he did not abandon it. The militants surrounded Brooke's home and lit large log fires in the yard.
Glendale farmers will resume work as soon as the militants are dealt with and Brooke returns home, Jenkins said.
``This is a symbolic way to let people know we just want to be left in peace to get on with the job of farming,'' said Jenkins.
Brooke's farm and most properties in the fertile Glendale ``grain basket'' were not on a list of 798 white-owned farms the government has targeted for nationalization.
The farmers' strike came as Zimbabwe's new Parliament, with the largest opposition contingent in the nation's history, was sworn in Tuesday.
It almost immediately sent a message to Mugabe that his two decades of authoritarian rule will no longer go unchallenged. The 58 opposition lawmakers were joined by one ruling party legislator in voting against the ruling party candidate, former Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, for speaker of the 150-member Parliament.
``The role of parliament is not to govern the country but to ensure that government does so with some form of transparency,'' said opposition lawmaker Learnmore Jongwe, the Movement for Democratic Change's shadow information minister.
The Movement for Democratic Change, the biggest threat to Mugabe's grip on power since independence in 1980, won 57 seats in the June election that decided Parliament's 120 elected seats. A small opposition group won one seat.
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Zimbabwe Issues Farm Seizure List

The Associated Press - Jul 17 2000 5:18PM ET

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - Zimbabwe's government issued a list Monday of 165 white-owned farms it said it will begin seizing immediately for the resettlement of landless blacks.
But farm leaders disputed the agriculture ministry's claim that owners of those properties were willing to cede them to the state with no guarantees of compensation.
Though many of the owners were willing to relinquish properties, all were demanding payment for the land, the Commercial Farmers Union said.
``Everybody expects to be paid fair compensation in a reasonable amount of time,'' said David Hasluck, the union's director.
Under land laws, owners cannot be forcibly evicted pending their appeals demanding payment, a process likely to take weeks or even months.
War veterans and ruling party militants began occupying white-owned farms in February, after President Robert Mugabe lost a constitutional referendum that would have empowered him to nationalize the farms without paying compensation.
The ruling party has since passed a law allowing government to do so anyway.
Vice President Joseph Msika said Saturday the government would begin resettling landless blacks on nationalized farms soon after a list of the first properties was issued.
He promised the government would also begin moving ruling party militants occupying hundreds of white-owned farms off land that has not been targeted for seizure.
Hasluck said documents handed over Monday listed a total of 798 farms targeted for seizure. Of these, 449 owners lodged formal objections that still had to be evaluated over the next few months and 184 were the owners' sole property and their source of livelihood, making them ineligible for seizure, according to the government's own criteria.
Of the remaining 165, the government claimed it received no response to seizure notices from 58, though at least 10 of those farmers in eastern Zimbabwe alone had certificates showing they lodged objections, Hasluck said.
The government's immediate intentions were not clear, Hasluck said.
``We are studying the list and what the government is claiming. We want to know what the conditions are,'' Hasluck said.
No comment was immediately available from Msika's office or the agriculture ministry. The government in April passed a law empowering it take land with farmers being eligible for compensation only on some buildings and improvements to the farm.
About 4,000 white farmers own a third of the nation's farmland, where about 2 million farm workers and their family members live. About 7 1/2 million people live on the other two-thirds.
The distribution of the government's list heightened uncertainty among farmers already in a tense standoff with armed occupiers.
Chenjerai Hunzvi, leader of the National Liberation War Veterans Association that spearheaded occupations of more than 1,600 white-owned farms, vowed Saturday to defy government orders to leave any of the properties his followers occupy.
The union last week reported an increase in death threats to farmers and attempts to drive white owners off their land by occupiers.
Threats and work stoppages continued Monday, the union said.
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Zimbabwe Debt to Eskom Rises to 100 Million Rand, Paper Reports
Bloomberg News - Jul 17 2000 3:51AM
Johannesburg, July 17 (Bloomberg) -- Zimbabwe's debt to Eskom, South Africa's national electricity utility, is increasing because it is unable to pay each month's bill in full, Business Report said, citing Eskom spokeswoman Riana Smith. Eskom is in talks with the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority for an agreement on servicing the debt. While Zimbabwe has paid Eskom 20 million rand ($2.9 million) this year, it has failed to pay an additional 40.2 million, pushing its debt to Eskom to more than 100 million rand, the paper said.
Eskom earlier this year said it may buy Zimbabwe's biggest power station and could cancel Zimbabwe's debt as part of the payment.
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Zimbabwe Launches Tourism Recovery Plan

HARARE (July 17) XINHUA - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe Monday launched the tourism recovery plan aimed at restoring international confidence in the country as a safe destination.
At the launching ceremony in Harare, Chairman of the Recovery Plan Task Force Steve Mangadze said 1.5 million U.S. dollars is now available for implementing the plan.
He said strategies had been put in place to stop the slide, but some recovery measures would require action that was beyond the scope and capacity of the tourism industry alone.
The tourism industry is the country's third biggest foreign currency earner after agriculture and mining. Last year about 1.2 million tourists visited the country.
The recovery program is based on the large scale mobilization of resources from within and outside the tourism industry, backed by an international information campaign.
He said one of their strategies would be to positively influence foreign missions in Harare as well as relevant authorities in source market countries.
Many foreign tourists canceled their trip as a result of violence ahead of the parliamentary elections last month.
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