"The Zimbabwe Situation" news page
From News 24 (SA), 19 July
Farmers 'shut down' in
dramatic protest
Harare - About 60 farmers in one of the most
productive agricultural areas
of Zimbabwe shut down their farms on
Tuesday to protest against the ongoing
land invasions by self-styled
guerrilla war veterans. The sprawling,
emerald
green fields of winter
wheat in the rich Glendale area about 80 km north of
Harare, usually
dotted with labourers and arced by sprays of irrigation
sprinklers, were
abandoned and eerily silent on Tuesday. Virtually the only
people at work
were security guards manning electrified gates and workers
performing
essential tasks such as milking dairy cows. "We have struggled
to
get
police support in containing the very malicious round we are in
now,"
said Malcolm Vowles, administrator for the CFU in the region.
"The
community
made its stand, that until farming is returned to
normality and we can
operate in safety and without interference, the
district is shut down."
The farmers arranged the "strike" - the
first collective action by the
predominantly white farming community
since the land invasions began in
February - over their security radio
system on Monday night. The final
straw
came when squatters smashed
the gates of local farming association chairman
Nick Brooke's farmstead
on Monday, and occupied his house. The invaders
declared they were taking
ownership of Brooke's farmstead and the rest of
the 600ha of highly
intensive mixed crop of wheat, cotton, maize, tobacco,
soya and export
hothouse roses. Brooke and his family were in Harare when
the veterans
occupied the house. They spent the night in the capital and on
Tuesday
were still waiting anxiously to see if it was safe for them
to
return.
"They were pretty violent, very abusive," said
Dave Jenkins, 52, Brooke's
deputy in the farming association, who tried
to negotiate with the veterans
to leave Brooke's farm. "They said
they were the law and order." Glendale
is
in Mashonaland Central
province. Although the province has been repeatedly
targeted by the war
veterans, Glendale itself was relatively calm until
last
week when
veterans began moving from farm to farm, telling owners to get
off
or
be forcibly removed, and possibly even murdered. These threats
came
despite statements by senior members of Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF
party that
the veterans should move off nearly all of the 1000 farms they
occupied
from
February and on to about 200 properties which the
government says it is in
the process of formally
expropriating.
Jenkins said police were called repeatedly to deal
with the veterans on
Brooke's farm, and promised to send officers there.
"Nobody came. Still
this
morning, no-one had come. You feel helpless,"
he said. "The situation is
untenable. We've decided enough is enough. We
can't do it physically, we
can't go and kick these guys off. We just
decided yesterday, we've got to
do
something." Farmers will stay on
their properties during the shut-down. "We
don't leave our homes and we
don't abandon our labour. Once you do that,
it's pretty hard to come
back." Jenkins hoped that the protest would not
have to go on for more
than about four days. Farmers' losses this year have
been severe because
of the violence. "If police came and got the veterans
out, we could be
back working in full swing an hour later. We must get law
and order back
and get on with the job of farming."
From The Daily
Telegraph, UK), 19 July
Zimbabwe farmers strike over
squatters
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 CFU 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."
From News 24 (SA), 18
July
Zanu-PF's hitlist growing
Bulawayo - The
president of a Bulawayo-based pressure group, Imbovane
Yamahlabezulu,
Bekithemba Sibindi, says he has received anonymous
threatening calls
accusing him of having helped to influence the defeat of
Zanu-PF in
Matabeleland in the recent parliamentary election. Sibindi joins
Roman
Catholic Church Archbishop Pius Ncube, who has also been
allegedly
included on a hit list of people identified as Zanu PF
enemies.
President Robert Mugabe has openly mentioned the
Archbishop, accusing him
of
having swayed the vote in Matabeleland
against Zanu-PF, reports the
Dispatch, a Bulawayo weekly newspaper. The
party was trounced by the MDC in
Matabeleland where it won only two seats
against 21 that went to the
labour-backed MDC. Zanu-PF's witch-hunt for
people suspected to have
influenced the vote against it has also
identified the outspoken Governor
for Matabeleland North, Welshman
Mabhena, as being one of the culprits.
One of the anonymous calls
to Sibindi was from a Harare number, shown on
his
cell phone during
the interview with this reporter. When The Dispatch made
a
follow-up
to trace the number it was answered by someone who said the
telephone was
that of the President's Office. Sibindi said he had also
received
anonymous letters threatening him. "The sources told me that I am
one of
the people who have been named for bringing the downfall of Zanu-PF
in
Matabeleland," he said. He added that his sources said his
questioning
of
the government's sincerity in compensating survivors of
Gukurahundi victims
killed in Matabeleland and the Midlands in the early
1980s was cited as
being responsible for hostility by the
establishment.
"I now fear for my life and that of my family," he
said. Sibindi, a school
teacher, said he had been advised by senior
members of the MDC to watch out
for reprisals by the ruling party. In
February, Sibindi lost favour with
the
government-appointed
Constitutional Commission when he spearheaded the
no-vote that led to the
rejection of a new draft constitution.
Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe
Liberators' Platform (ZLP) has condemned
State-sponsored violence and
human rights abuses and called on war veterans
to resist being
manipulated. The ZLP, a faction of the war veterans, said
they supported
Archbishop Ncube's stance against violence and human rights
abuses. In a
statement on Sunday, the ZLP said: "We support him on his
non-partisan
approach to the current political climate which is expected of
a
clergyman. Archbishop Ncube has openly condemned violence and
political
intimidation. "His encouragement of people to vote for whomever
they want
not only agrees with the supreme law of the land, but is also
one of the
reasons why people fought for the liberation of this country."
Ncube has
said he believes he is on a "hit list" of the secret service,
the CIO.
From The Star (SA), 19 July
Zim
opposition makes mark in parliament
Harare - Zimbabwe's new
parliament, with the largest opposition contingent
in the nation's
history, was sworn in on Tuesday and it almost immediately
sent a message
to President Robert 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
former justice minister
Emmerson Mnangagwa's candidacy for speaker of the
150-member parliament.
Though Mnangagwa won easily with 87 votes, the
strong
challenge to the
ruling party's candidate was a huge change from the
previous parliament
where Mugabe's party controlled all but three seats.
Two
legislators
were absent from the vote and two ballots were disqualified.
"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 MDC's shadow information
minister. For the first
time,
the ruling ZANU-PF would not have it all
its own way in the parliament,
Jongwe said. "It's healthy. We can ensure
Zanu-PF is brought to account for
all of its decisions," he
added.
Mnangagwa was among the ruling party candidates defeated
in the election,
but Mugabe later appointed him to the parliament. Mugabe
will formally open
Parliament on Thursday. Opposition lawmakers jeered as
incoming legislator
Chenjerai Hunzvi, leader of a war veterans group that
spearheaded the farm
occupations, swore that he did "solemnly and
sincerely affirm and declare
... to bear true allegiance to Zimbabwe and
observe the laws of Zimbabwe".
Hunzvi, of the ruling party, raised a
militant clenched fist salute while
taking the oath. Outside the
parliament building, hundreds of rival party
supporters cheered their
chosen lawmakers as they arrived for the ceremony.
Opposition supporters
gave the MDC's open hand salute and chanted the
party's slogan, "chinja,"
or "change" in the Shona language.
From Extract from Daily
News, 19 July, 2000
Commotion in House as new MPs take
oath
After Zvoma proclaimed that Mnangagwa, 58 had been elected
speaker of the
5th parliament, Shuvai Mahofa MP for Gutu South, and Joyce
Mujuru, the
Minister for Rural Resources and Water Development, jumped
from their seats
and led Zanu PF MP's in a war dance singing loudly in
Shona "Zimbabwe
ndeyeropa baba, Zimbabwe ndeyeropa ramadzibaba"
(Zimbabwe's Independence
was
won through
bloodshed).
Taken by complete surprise by this sudden outburst on
the part of Zanu PF,
MDC MPs momentarily sat glued on their
seats.
Then, one by one, they all stood up. Then, chanting in
unison, they
drowned
the Zanu PF voices as they sang "Zanu yawora,
Zanu yawora!" (Zanu in now
rotten).
As if on cue, the Zanu
PF members suddenly became quiet, retreated to their
seats and watched in
silence as the MDC MPs sang to their hearts' content.
Dressed in
his black and white ceremonial robes, Zvoma was forced to raise
his voice
above the din to call for order in the chamber before restoring
some
semblance of decorum in the august house.
Keep up the
support!
Regards,
MDC Support Centre
8th
Floor, Gold Bridge
Eastgate
Harare
Guqula
Izenzo/Maitiro Chinja
"The people of Zimbabwe have begun the
process of reclaiming power and the
institution of true democratic
change." (Morgan Tsvangirai)
COMMERCIAL FARMERS
UNION
FARM INVASIONS
UPDATE
SATURDAY 22 JULY
2000
REGIONAL
REPORTS
MASHONALAND
CENTRAL
Centenary - At
Rianbuck Farm, war vets threatened retaliation following arrests earlier this
week on charges of assault. Police responded and defused the situation.
Similarly, war vets who were arrested for diesel theft threatened the owner of
Viewfield Farm, but the police took a firm stance. Tractor work has been
stopped on Nyamanetsa and Kingstone Devrill. The owner of Ashford Farm
continues to receive telephone death threats.
Horseshoe - The
labourers of Nyamfuta Farm have been told to vacate the farm village by 26th
July. Despite persistent intimidation and daily pungwes, the owner of Woma Farm
has remained on the farm a full week after his "deadline" for
eviction.
Victory Block -
The owner of Birkdale received a threat yesterday afternoon to vacate
his farm within 24 hours. The owners of Velvekia have received threats that if
they do not vacate the farm by 26th July, they will be barricaded in their
home. On the same property, 5km of fencing was stolen and a cow was wounded on
the head by axe. War vets intimidated workers on Msitwe River Ranch and
threatened to assault the health worker.
Mvurwi - One
farm guard was assaulted yesterday on Four Streams Farm in retaliation against
hostile action by workers earlier in the week. A large group of war vets has
gathered at this property today for possible retribution.
Mazowe/Concession -
There is ongoing conflict between various groups claiming the same
farms. The owner of Belgownie was given 24 hours to vacate when he refused
accommodation. The workers took a supportive stance and police defused the
situation.
Glendale - The
situation is stable at Mukoko Farm which was the focus of the district shut-down
during the week. There were visits and pegging on Verona and Villa Franca
yesterday.
Mutepatepa - CIO
investigated reports of assaults on Avoca Farm where there has been a build up
of numbers. A group of about 25 visited Bourtonvale and stated that they would
return next week.
Shamva - The
district decided to shut-down today after attempts to stabilise the situation on
Woodlands B were not successful. War vets at Woodlands A are still camping by
the fence, despite an order by the police to observe a 100 metre perimeter.
Security Co-ordinators are working closely with the police to resolve these
issues.
Harare West / Nyabira -
The owners of Maypark Farm continue to be subjected to pressure and a
large group gathered there yesterday.
MASHONALAND
EAST
Marondera - Mari: The war vets brought their cattle onto the farm on
Sunday 16th and the owner called the police twice but they never came. Another
15 invaders arrived and are building well established huts. Homepark: Another three heifer weaners were axed and the
one resident war vet Mrs Kadengoni issued a death threat to a couple who reside
on the farm. Setaton: The farm owner is
breaking down a house and the war vets have told him not to as they are moving
into the house. They have threatened to come with more people and beat the farm
labour. Situations on Chapungu and
Dormavale are ongoing.
Harare South/ Beatrice
- Unable to
contact
Wedza -
Poltimore: One
calf was killed. Anstey: 2 beasts slashed
but should recover. Msasa Estate: 2 women
who were retrenched went to war vet Chigwadere and complained. Chigwadere phoned
the FA Chairman and threatened work stoppages if this was not reversed.
Ruware: The farm clerk was paid off
yesterday and then ran off to war vet Chigwadere and complained. Chigwadere
phoned the FA Chairman and threatened a massive farm invasion unless the clerk
was reinstated.
Macheke/Virginia -
Only two work
stoppages continue today.
The rest of the Region has nothing
to report.
MASHONALAND WEST
NORTH
Karoi - on
Ruwanzi Farm 2 km of six-strand fencing stolen and reported to ploice, poaching
ongoing and game guards have shot 2 dogs and retrieved hunting spears. On
Collingwood 1 km of fencing stolen, poaching of game and fish continues - war
vets claim all game is their property, no land prep or fire guard prep allowed,
shacks being built on fire guards. On Pumula war vets entered by force and
moved into empty homestead, police unable to react due to no transport, so it
was reported to Dispol. On Templecomb war vets demanded that beans must be
removed from lands, pivot and all "katundu" (belongings) must be removed. On
Hesketh Park poaching problem is intensifying. On Grand Parade trouble followed
when farmer moved cattle without war vets ' permission. Farm foreman, workers ,
farmer's wife and son were threatened, and stockmen were kidnapped. One farm
guard that war vets objected to had to be dismissed in interests of harmony. On
Nassau war vets stopped tractors working, claiming it was their land. Farmer
was unable to get police to repond and an unpleasant situation developed between
officer-in-charge and farmer. On Buffalo Daowns, maize has been
stolen.
Chinhoyi area -
there are reports that a number of farms have been visited by three
people in a white Nissan Sunny who are rather intimidating and state that they
are taking over the farms. This is under investigation. Slaughtering of
cattle, snaring and poaching are being reported
throughout.
MASHONALAND WEST
SOUTH
Chakari - approx 40 invaders surrounded a farm
house in a threatening manner, letting the air out of the farmer's vehicles, and
holding an all-night pungwe, but police have reacted and the situation is
currently calm.
Chegutu - a mob of approx 160 have moved out of
town on the Concession Hill Rd and onto La Forte Farm, following on from
yesterday's situation, but police have reacted and dispersed the crowd, and all
is calm.
MASVINGO
Situation is the same, with invasions, pegging, poaching,
tree-cutting and clearing on-going
throughout the province. A set of safari clients had to be evacuated from one
farm. Of concern is that certain police officials who are trying to do their
work are coming under political pressure. Captain Zimuto, a senior war vet in
the area who was under warrant of arrest, appeared in court for breaching the
peace and has been found guilty. Sentence is expected to be passed on
Monday.
MANICALAND
Nothing
to report.
MATABELELAND
No reports of problems today.
MIDLANDS
No
specific incidents to report, just a general trend of increased movements onto
farms, sometimes new and unidentified farms, as if to stake claim to
territory.