http://www.zimonline.co.za
by Cuthbert Nzou
Friday 13 November 2009
HARARE - The Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), the country's
biggest labour union, on
Thursday called for the immediate resignation of
co-ministers of home
affairs Kembo Mohadi and Giles Mutsekwa for failing to
ensure that police
uphold the rule of the law.
The call for Mohadi and Mutsekwa to
quit follows a court ruling
earlier in the day the quashing charges against
ZCTU president Lovemore
Matombo and four staffers - Michael Kandukutu,
Dumisani Ncube, Nawu Ndlovu,
and Percy Mcijo - arrested last Sunday for
allegedly holding an illegal
meeting in the resort town of Victoria
Falls.
Magistrate Richard Ramaboea yesterday said the police had no
authority
under the draconian Public Order and Security Act (POSA) to arrest
trade
unionists for holding a meeting because they belong to professional
bodies.
Wellington Chibebe, the ZCTU secretary-general, in a
hard-hitting
statement after the release of Matombo and the staffers said
there was
urgent need to reform the police for the force to work
independently.
He said the police were taking instructions from
politicians instead
of doing a professional work.
Chibebe said:
"The comments made by the police through state owned
media that the ZCTU
should have sought police clearance before holding the
meeting smack of a
police force that acts on political decisions and not on
whether one has a
case to answer or not.
"This is not the kind of police that
Zimbabweans want, but
unfortunately we have to live with such. This points
to the fact that we
definitely need to reform the police so that we have a
professional
non-partisan force. The infamous POSA clearly does not cover
trade unions
but the police continue to disrupt trade union activities in
the name of
POSA. The police should be undoubtedly ashamed of their
actions."
Chibebe expressed disappointment in the actions of
Mutsekwa and Mohadi
saying the ministers have failed the nation. "The best
present they can
offer Zimbabweans is to resign," he said.
Mohadi is a member of President Robert Mugabe's ZANU PF party while
Mutsekwa
belongs to the MDC-T party of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, a
traditional ally of the ZCTU.
The MDC-T insisted to jointly
control the home affairs department with
ZANU PF in order to ensure people
did not abuse their powers. However,
reining in Police Commissioner General
Augustine Chihuri - a top ZANU PF
loyalist - has proved an easier said than
done task for Mutsekwa.
The arrest of the five unionists was
roundly condemned by the labour
movement across the world with the African
Regional Organisation of the
International Trade Union Confederation
(ITUC-Africa) writing to Mugabe
release of the ZCTU officials. -
ZimOnline
http://www.voanews.com
By
Peta Thornycroft
Southern Africa
13 November 2009
A
new report from a Zimbabwe union says workers on the country's white-run
farms were subjected to even greater violence than their employers during
violent farms seizures under 's chaotic land-reform program.
The
report from the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers Union of
Zimbabwe says more 60 percent of farm workers said they were tortured and
forced to leave the farms that were their homes during seizures since 2000.
The report says farm workers reporting such abuse outnumber their former
white-farmer employers by 100 to one.
The report was produced for
Zimbabwe's largest farm workers' union by the
Research and Advocacy Unit and
the agricultural advocacy group, Justice for
Agriculture.
Researchers
found many workers forced to leave the farms went to towns, a
few went to
neighboring countries to seek work and a minority remained on
the farms
working for the beneficiaries of the land, usually senior members
of
ZANU-PF. Some found shelter in nearby communal lands.
The report says
some white farmers who have kept in contact with their
workers after they
were all evicted estimate about 40 percent of their
employees have died
since they were evicted.
The union's long-serving general secretary,
Gertrude Hambira, says
membership in the union has declined dramatically.
She says the aim of the
study was to bring the plight of farm workers to the
leaders of the Southern
Africa Development Community. "Prior to the
land-reform program, we used to
have a membership of 150,000 members. But
today we have 25,000 members left.
This is an appeal to SADC leaders to end
violence on Zimbabwe's farms," she
said.
About three quarters of
those interviewed for the study said they believed
those who had invaded the
farms and harmed them should be prosecuted.
The same number said they
would like to turn the clock back to before 2000
and reclaim lives lost when
the farm invasions began. The report says this
is despite the fact that in
the 1990's there was an urgent need for better
living and working conditions
for farm workers.
Their losses of possessions averaged out at less than
$200, but included
clothes, pots, pans, and beds that they say they can
never replace. They
also lost land on the farms where they grew crops for
themselves and
chickens and other livestock and most importantly the homes
in which they
lived.
Many farm workers told researchers their
families were divided as their
children were living with relatives or
friends.
A majority of those interviewed said they sought relief from the
Zimbabwe
Republic Police during invasions, but were not helped because they
were told
the workers' traumas on the farms were "political."
Workers
told researchers that traditional leaders, ZANU-PF members, and
people who
claimed to be veterans of the liberation war were mostly
responsible for
their abuse.
Before land invasions the report said about 1.8 million
people lived and
worked on white farms and many of them, like their
employers, became
supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change, which
nearly defeated
ZANU-PF in elections in 2000. It was after these elections
that the
majority of violent land seizures took place.
Some workers
from farms still occupied by whites say they are continuously
being
threatened.
The man whose identity was protected for fear of retribution
said he did not
understand why. He said the workers are unable to live
peacefully in their
own homes because they fear abduction, that they would
be forced to
disappear or even killed.
Workers employed by white
farmers who last year sought and won relief from
the regional court of last
resort, the SADC Tribunal, feel particularly
vulnerable the report says,
because their farms are targeted in extremely
violent takeover attempts. The
report says this is because tribunal ordered
the then ZANU-PF government of
President Robert Mugabe to leave the farmers
and their workers in
peace.
Another older worker in charge of a valuable engine on a farm
complained he
was forced to turn it on for invaders.
The worker says
the invaders arrive at any time they choose and force him to
operate the
engine. He asks why would they hold a gun on him and why is he
being forced
to do something against his will?
An old man, who despite his advanced
years still needs to work to put food
on the table, laments his
situation.
He said his heart is broken and bleeding because the goal of
those involved
in land seizures is not to build the country, but to destroy
it.
Commercial Farmers Union President Deon Theron, who has been evicted,
recalls with evident emotion a moment in the early days of land invasions
when his employee, Paradzai, disappeared in the tumult of the eviction. "The
next day, the police contacted me and said to me, you can come and fetch
Paradzai. I said can you just give him money and tell him to come to the
farm. And they said no, they said to me, come and fetch his body. He had
been with me for many, many years. He had seven children," Theron
said.
Gertrude Hambira is hoping to take her report to SADC leaders and
diplomats
in the region.
| ||
GAPWUZ report: If something is wrong . . . The invisible suffering of commercial farm workers and their families due to “Land Reform”.
"We may have
different skin colours but if something wrong is being done it upsets everyone."
– Farm Worker 20
Report produced for
the General Agricultural & Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe [GAPWUZ] by
the Research and Advocacy Unit [RAU] and the Justice For Agriculture [JAG] Trust
Introduction
This report presents
the findings of preliminary quantitative and qualitative surveys of workers on
commercial farms in the wake of the catastrophic “Land Reform” policy in
Zimbabwe. Whilst the companion reports produced from this series of projects
have received some attention, this report is the first to deal solely with data
gathered from the farm workers themselves. It represents the views of only a
small section of the 1.8 million people that lived and worked on Zimbabwe’s
commercial farms. However, the continued gathering of data means that in time we
will be able to paint a detailed picture of the lives of farm workers across the
country, as they struggled over the last nine years with state-sponsored
invasions, torture, violent assaults, murders, rapes, evictions and other
violations of the law and their rights. For the moment, though, the data
presented here makes no claim to be statistically
representative.
Nevertheless, what
emerges makes sobering reading. The prevalence of human rights violations
recorded by the sample in this survey is disturbing. The data also shows that
earlier estimates by farmers of the violations experienced by their workers
appear to be largely consistent with estimates made by the workers themselves.
This lends further credibility to extremely high figures of violation
prevalence. The fact, for example, that 1 in 10 of the present respondents
report at least one murder amongst fellow farm workers, and that 38 percent of
respondents report that children on the farms were forced to watch public
beatings or torture, shows the extent to which Robert Mugabe’s regime is
responsible for an extensive series of crimes that were both widespread and
systematic: the very definition of crimes against
humanity.
Whilst this claim has
been made, and rightfully, many times about the disregard by Mugabe and his ZANU
PF supporters for human life, it is nowhere more apparent than in relation to
the situation on Zimbabwe’s farms. The evidence indicates clearly that the
Zimbabwean “Land Reform” was not, as ZANU PF would have people believe: a
socially responsible exercise where an unfortunate few white farmers became
regrettable but necessary ‘collateral damage’ as precious State resources were
munificently redistributed to the poor and needy. It was, rather, a violent,
State-sponsored and systematic attack on 1.8 million people in order to wipe out
any illusions of political freedom they might have cherished, to force them into
the ranks of strict ZANU PF orthodoxy and to prevent them from lending support
to the fledgling Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) opposition
party.
In this report, and
in the other reports from the companion projects, the term “Land Reform” appears
throughout in inverted commas. This is because “Land Reform” has not been the
salutary restructuring of land ownership and agricultural production that the
term suggests. A huge proportion of land remains in the hands of wealthy
politically connected “A2” farmers, effectively changing the skin colour of the
old dispensation, but maintaining the wealth gap between rich and poor.
Political patronage has resulted in all the land – and the word ‘all’ is used
advisedly – being allocated to ZANU PF supporters. Under the current
dispensation, these occupiers do not own the land, or even lease it, and can be
evicted from the property at any moment, without notice. Possession is entirely
dependent upon the goodwill and whims of ZANU PF government officials. This
patronage system further demands and enforces fealty by the holders of land to
ZANU PF.
This report also
questions, as the others have before, the net increase in the number of people
living on the land in the wake of “Land Reform”. Even if government’s own figure
of 350 000 families being resettled is taken as accurate – not necessarily
always the case with government’s figures – this report should awaken suspicion
about the number of farm workers displaced from the farms. Only a third of the
current sample are still living on a farm.
This almost certainly
points to mass displacements on a vast scale, not matched by the numbers
resettled.
In addition, it
should be noted that this report is primarily concerned with a particular
subsection of the human rights violations that have been perpetrated against
farm workers.
Whilst the focus here
is on violations of physical integrity and political freedoms, many other human
rights have also been violated. For example, here only brief mention is made of
violations of the rights to security of employment, work, health, shelter,
education, food, water, sanitation or information, or of the denial of basic
freedoms such as freedom of association or freedom of
expression.
Finally, though, it
ought to be remembered that the current report does not make national claims.
The sample size is too small and it is geographically skewed. Indeed, it is our
wish that the victims of the “Land Reform” programme be heard in their full
individuality, as well as in the collective voice of the statistical mass. It is
for this reason that this report presents representative narratives from the
victims as examples of the statistics discussed.
Data collection
continues, and each completed survey adds further evidence of the scale and
nature of the gross human rights violations that have taken place in the name of
“Land Reform” in Zimbabwe, one of the clearest examples of the Government’s
several crimes against humanity.
Under the
resettlement scheme two models exist: A1, where poor communal farmers are
allocated small plots; and A2, where rich farmers are allocated entire farms or
large portions thereof.
Methodology
The data presented
here has been gathered in the pilot phase of the Commercial Farm Worker
Displacement Project, where methodological techniques were tested and refined.
At the end of most sections, qualitative excerpts from full-length narrative
interviews have been given verbatim, in translated form, in order to put a human
face on the kinds of statistical data given here. The excerpts from the
narrative interviews have been anonymised to prevent further reprisals against
victims and witnesses, although the current study possesses full details of all
deponents. These narrative testimonies are drawn from a pool of a mere 30
deponents. It must be pointed out that these 30 deponents were not chosen for
the degree of hardship they had suffered, or the severity of the violations
perpetrated against them; rather, the authors arranged the available farm worker
testimonies alphabetically, and took extracts from the first 30 when arranged in
this order.
This sample of 30
deponents is below the 166 quantitative respondents, as their testimony is being
used mainly as an illustration of the statistics.
The quantitative data
was collected in a period when various quantitative survey structures were
designed and tested and subsequently refined. As a finalised quantitative survey
has now been prepared, and is presented in Appendix 1, the data gathered on the
five separate pilot surveys has been collated and cleaned for the purposes of
the analysis in this report.
The first draft of
the survey is also presented in Appendix 1, so that comparisons can be made and
the development of this survey understood.
The first draft of
the quantitative survey was adapted from the survey used to interview Commercial
Farmers, the Damages Questionnaire or “DQ”. However, it quickly became clear
that the first farm worker survey had several shortcomings, some inherited from
the DQ, and some of its own. For example, and this is a problem first
encountered in the DQ, when respondents are asked if a particular violation
occurred on a farm, they can often answer with a reasonable degree of
confidence. However, if one asks them how many people were victims of this
violation, they are seldom in a position to answer this accurately. For this
reason, fields indicating numbers of victims were dropped quite early on in the
process of refinement and restructuring. This process is now complete. Several
completely new questions are likely to result in crucial data becoming available
to the public for the first time. For example, it is expected that the long list
of possible lost property will result in some quite accurate estimates for
property losses by farm workers, one of the many hitherto hidden consequences of
their ill-treatment.
Because of the five
different versions of the survey, and in some cases five different versions of
one question, the collation of the data has been difficult though not
impossible. For this reason it is important to note the number of respondents
who answered any particular question. This will be given in the text and in
graphics by the standard, for example, “n = 67”, for a question where 67
responses were recorded. This is important because some questions have as few as
15 respondents. Questions with less than 15 respondents were abandoned as
inadequate for statistical purposes and have been left out of this report.
Obviously, where 100 people are asked a question the average response is likely
to be more representative of the general population than where only ten people
are asked that same question. The greatest number of responses to any question
is 166, the total number of people included in the five versions of the
survey.
Both quantitative and
qualitative data were collected in two main ways: through the farmer, or using
GAPWUZ representation in the field. When workers were contacted via the farmer,
they were often still employed and living a comparatively better life than their
colleagues who had been evicted or abandoned without jobs. Moreover, those
workers approached via GAPWUZ were more likely to be still living on the farm
and to be current GAPWUZ members, that is, still working. This means that this
survey has not yet accessed workers whose situation was even more critical, for
example those who became unwanted squatters in the rural areas or in informal
settlements in town, or those whose principal means of coping financially became
illegal gold panning or cross-border trading. To state it baldly, the authors
believe that the respondents in our survey are in a better position than the
average former farm worker in Zimbabwe.
There are several
biases present in the sample: firstly, it is biased geographically, as the
initial stages of surveying were all done in or around Harare; secondly, it
over-represents domestic workers, as many of the first workers interviewed were
domestic workers still working for an ex-farmer who had now moved to town;
thirdly, it over-represents workers in authority, as initially contacts were
made with workers through their employers, and employers were more likely to
have contact details for their former managers, supervisors and foremen than
general hands or labourers.
It is possible these
biases could affect the data but they have been ignored at present
as:
• it is the authors’
contention that these biases are small and are unlikely to substantively affect
the content of this report, and as
• this report does
not make any claim of representativeness.
Results
Sample
Geography
The sample, like the
sample of farmers in Reckless Tragedy:
Irreversible?, is
skewed towards the Mashonaland and Manicaland provinces. Not a single respondent
has yet been surveyed from the Matabeleland provinces. However, as with the
farmers, it should be noted that the majority of farms, and the more
labour-intensive farms and agri-businesses, were in the Mashonaland and
Manicaland provinces. This fact means that the bias is not as great as one would
imagine from the table below. Future stages of the research will ensure a more
even and representative geographical spread of farm
workers.
Province
Number
%
Mashonaland West
66 40%
Mashonaland East
39 23%
Mashonaland Central
29 18%
Manicaland
27 16%
Midlands 4 2%
Masvingo
1 1%
Grand Total
166
100%
Sample
Demographics
The average age of
the sample respondents is 39 years, which is considerably younger than 57 years,
the average age of the respondents in Reckless
Tragedy: Irreversible?, the companion report on commercial
farmers.
This is very
significant. The average year of birth for our sample is 1969. This means that,
by the end of the independence war in 1980, on average the sample would have
been only 11 years old, and would only have begun high school in an independent
Zimbabwe. The teenage years and the corresponding growth of political
consciousness for our sample would mainly have begun after the war.
If this age pattern
is replicated throughout the entire population of farm workers, the significance
would be enormous. Without the same historical loyalty to ZANU PF, and showing
signs of allegiance to the budding MDC, of which several farmers were prominent
members, the younger farm worker population represented a growing threat to the
ruling party. As will be discussed below, the population of farm workers was
highly significant.
Statistical
inferences in Reckless Tragedy: Irreversible?
indicated that farm
workers would have numbered at least 1.3 million people (i.e. at least 10
percent of the country’s population) and possibly as many as 1.9 million prior
to the disruption post 2000. This suggests that the farm workers represented a
very sizeable number of potential MDC votes.
The sample is mainly
male, with 83% male and 17% female.
Gender
Number
%
Female
29
17%
Male
138
83%
Total
167
100%
This gender disparity
is not surprising, as the sample also reports that 90% of respondents were
permanent workers on the farms. Other published research also shows that less
than 10% of permanent workers on farms were women. As with the geographical
spread, future research will seek to stratify sampling procedures to avoid
bias.
Respondents stated
that the average amount of time they had worked on the farm before their
employment was terminated was 8.2 years. This suggests a moderate degree of
labour mobility, as the average age of respondents was 39
years.
The table below shows
the degree to which the sample is skewed towards both workers in authority and
domestic workers on the farm. In reality, most farms would have had a
considerably higher percentage of general hands than the 25% in our sample. This
is because, as previously explained, sampling for some of these initial surveys
was conducted through the contacts the farmer had maintained with his former
employees. For obvious reasons, farmers were more likely to maintain contact
with domestic workers and workers in positions of authority than with general
hands.
163 respondents reported an average of 4.3 family members living in their household. Of these, an average of 1.4 family members also worked on the farm. These figures appear to relate well to those estimated by farmers in Reckless Tragedy: Irreversible? where 418 farmers estimated that 34,520 permanent workers lived with 156,911 family members, i.e. an average of 4.5 family members per household. Other studies, such as that conducted by the Zimbabwe Network for Informal Settlement Action (ZINISA) in 2000, estimate the number of dependants per worker at about 6.
The figures for the
number of permanent and seasonal workers appear here to be overestimates, whilst
the figure for farm compound population appears to be more accurate, when
considered against, for example, the figures in Reckless Tragedy: Irreversible?
Where respondents
estimate the average size of their permanent and seasonal labour forces to be 83
and 80 respectively, and the average population of farm residents to be
375.
Origins, Nationality and
Citizenship
Numerous questions
were asked about the family origins, nationality and citizenship of farm workers
in order to investigate widely held beliefs that many farm workers were of
Malawian, Zambian or Mozambican origin. Firstly, a not insignificant proportion
were born outside the borders of Zimbabwe:
Were you born in
Zimbabwe?
Number
%
No
14
9%
Yes
148
91%
Total
162
100 %
This already backs up
contentions that there were a significant number of non-Zimbabweans within the
ranks of the farm workers. However, when asked if they were Zimbabwean citizens,
a greater percentage answered ‘no’ which shows that some workers, though born in
Zimbabwe, are children of non-Zimbabweans.
Are
you a
Zimbabwean Citizen?
Number
%
No
11
15%
Yes
62
85%
Total
73
100 %
Identity documents
can sometimes be difficult to obtain in Zimbabwe, although our sample seemed
unusually fortunate in this regard.
It is somewhat
strange that 94% of the sample should have an ID whilst only 81% should have a
birth certificate, as normally an ID can only be obtained after one has a birth
certificate.
The authors suggest
no explanation for this anomaly, other than the possibility of the loss, theft
or destruction of the birth certificate document as it is more fragile than the
metal ID card.
At any rate, it is
interesting to note that 5% of the sample reports holding citizenship of a
country other than Zimbabwe. This figure, when considered with the 15% who state
they are not citizens of Zimbabwe, would appear to imply that there is at least
some percentage (perhaps 10%) of farm workers who consider themselves to be
stateless.
Are
you a citizen of another country?
Number
%
No
142
95%
Yes
8
5%
Grand Total
150
100%
Of these eight
respondents claiming citizenship of another country, four are Malawian, two are
Mozambican and two are Zambian. This supports common assertions that significant
proportions of farm workers come from these
countries.
However, when asked
whether the families of the respondents possessed Zimbabwean citizenship an even
more interesting picture emerges:
Does your family have Zimbabwean Citizenship?
Number
%
No
4
20%
Yes
16
80%
Grand Total
20
100%
Note here, that
whilst the sample size in this table is significantly smaller than the other
questions in this section, the table nonetheless suggests that a fairly
significant proportion of farm workers who describe themselves as Zimbabwean are
likely to have family ties to other countries. This hypothesis is entirely borne
out by the results of the following table:
Nationality of Parents
Number
%
Tanzania
1
1%
Zambia
10
6%
Mixed
22
14%
Mozambique
28
17%
Malawi
32
20%
Zimbabwe
68
42%
Grand Total
161
100%
This is a very
significant finding. If only 42% of farm-workers describe both their parents as
having been Zimbabwean, it is not surprising that ZANU PF, with its strongly
Shona nationalist culture, should view this group as even more expendable than
other members of the population, and treat them accordingly. It is quite
extraordinary that so many farm workers should have parents who are not
Zimbabweans, and this figure is significantly higher than other common estimates
of ‘non-Zimbabweans’ present in the agricultural work force. It is possibly an
anomaly of the small sample size, or of the sampling methodology, though no
feasible explanation for this has been considered.
Of the 50 respondents
who gave data about the arrival of their parents in Zimbabwe, the majority came
during or after the Second World War, during Federation or in the first few
years following UDI (1965).
All these figures
together suggest an interesting scenario. It seems likely that a significant
percentage of farm workers from the previous generation were originally from
countries other than Zimbabwe. After migrating to Zimbabwe to find work, they
had children who, as adults, continued to work on the farms, and who have now
assimilated, or are in the process of assimilating, as “Zimbabweans”. Here it is
helpful to note the parallels with the white commercial farmers, who have also
been viewed as “foreign” and especially “British” despite, in most instances, a
complete lack of rights to the citizenship of the UK or any country other than
Zimbabwe. In the eyes of ZANU PF, some Zimbabweans are more Zimbabwean than
others. It is the view of the authors of this report that the significant
proportion of farm workers with historical family links to other countries has
been one of the causes for the entire group of farm workers being treated as
second class citizens, and has served as justification to their oppressors for
their systematic disenfranchisement, exclusion and physical and psychological
assault. Again, the parallels to white farmers are probably not
coincidental.
The data in this
section has proved somewhat fragmentary, and at times apparently contradictory,
so it may be helpful to summarise our interpretation of it. Over the last 100
years, many farm workers migrated to Rhodesia/Zimbabwe from neighbouring
countries, especially from Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia. These workers began
the process of assimilating with the Zimbabwean workers found on the farms.
Their children, born in Zimbabwe, became Zimbabwean citizens, but with cultural
and ethnic ties to their parents’ countries of origin. It is a hypothesis of the
authors that this “stigma” of not being a ‘true Zimbabwean’ was one of the
causes, in addition to the obvious political subjugation, for the post-2000
ill-treatment, abuse and oppression of farm workers which this report
describes.
When Farm Worker 1
was evicted from the farm he lost several documents: I would say that I lost
[several documents
including] my mother’s death certificate. Yes,
my mother’s death certificate got lost which I was supposed to use to apply for
an ID. I was born in this country but my parents are from
Malawi.
Voting
patterns
The next section was
added relatively late in the survey design, so it only reflects the responses of
16 farm workers. However it is included because it suggests some interesting
possibilities, pending further research.
If this pattern is
replicated in the entire population, it may indeed prove to be hugely
significant. Note this sample’s doubling of voter participation between 1995 and
2000, and again in 2002. This, in combination with the age data given earlier,
suggests that the young farm workers, on average born in 1969, would attain the
age of majority in 1987. However, their political participation only surged in
2000/2002 at the time the “Land Reform” was launched. This would support the
contention that the growing political involvement of farm workers in opposition
politics, specifically their support for the ‘No’ vote in the referendum and
support for the MDC, directly resulted in the events of the “Land Reform” where,
as we 6 2008 Harmonised Election 7 2008 Run-off Election know and will continue
to make clear, hundreds of thousands of people were displaced, assaulted,
tortured, etc. expressly because of their political affiliation. Once again,
this was not Land Reform, but “Land Reform”, a political
masquerade.
Also noteworthy in
the above table is the fall-off in voter participation post 2005. This may be
the result of intimidation, disillusionment or both. For example, when we asked
respondents if they had been affected by Operation Mavoterapapi (“How did you
vote?”), the
military and paramilitary crackdown on the opposition in the wake of the lost
2008 Harmonised Election, no fewer than 75% of the 20 respondents responded
positively. This suggests a reason why voter participation from our sample drops
from 10 out of 16 for the Harmonised Election to 7 out of 16 for the
Run-off.
Yes
N=
%
Were
you affected by Operation
Mavoterapapi? 15
20
75%
However, these
figures, whilst suggestive, should not yet have too much weight placed on them.
The research in this regard is ongoing.
Farm Worker 2 was
interviewed in the middle of Operation
Mavoterapapi and he
described it as follows:
There was actually a meeting which was held yesterday
and members of the army and the war veterans pitched some tents. There is a camp
at the Country Club which belongs to Varungu where there is a
Golf Course. And the war veterans and the soldiers are also camped by the hall
in the high density area. They are saying that they will be operating from there
going onto the farms. They are saying that they will be slaughtering 8 of
[the farmer’s]
beasts per day until they are finished. They
want to slaughter them to eat whilst they will be at their bases. They are
overseeing all the farms because the war veterans have moved to camp elsewhere.
The DA and a senior police official went to the farm this morning when I came
here. […] The people who are holding meetings in the farms are
the soldiers who are rounding up people and giving them instructions not to vote
for MDC. They are telling people that they will beat them thoroughly if they
vote for MDC like what they did before. The soldiers have come here in
connection with the elections and there is another group which is responsible
for land. They are saying that they want to see where we will go when the whites
leave. The group that is responsible for land is also involved in the elections.
They are telling us to vote for ZANU-PF in the next elections. Varungu are at
the wards
with the war veterans and soldiers as we
speak.
Human Rights Violations experienced during “Land
Reform”
Violations against
workers
Respondents reported
the following personal experiences of human rights violations.
Several results are
extremely important here. Firstly, it should come as some surprise that any
human rights violations at all should take place during an exercise purporting
to be a socially just and equitable “Land Reform”. That they should be recorded
here in such significant proportions poses difficult questions of the real
motives behind this quasi-military exercise the Zimbabwean Government like to
term the “Third Chimurenga”.
Secondly, and very
significantly, the three major violations are all political violations. This
backs up the similar results obtained when farmers were questioned about the
experiences of their employees in Reckless
Tragedy: Irreversible? Being Forced to Join ZANU-PF, Political Intimidation
and Being Forced to Attend Political Meetings are reported on a massive scale
(all by more than two-thirds of respondents). This indicates that the primary
motivation of the “Land Reform” was to politically subjugate the rural
population and quash any murmurings of opposition to ZANU
PF.
The fourth highest
violation, Torture, with 65%, deserves a word of explanation. The term torture in English has been translated into Shona as kushungurudzwa, but the Shona word has a broader meaning than the
English word torture.
Other translations
of kushungurudzwa
could include:
severe ill-treatment
or psychological torture.
Note, however, that
in the context of the “Land Reform”, all of these meanings would fit into the UN
definition of torture, which states that an act of torture must encompass all of
the following elements:
1. Severe pain and suffering, whether physical or
mental;
2. Intentional
infliction;
3. Infliction with a
purpose;
4. Infliction by a State official or another acting with
the acquiescence of the State.
The percentage of
respondents reporting that they had received death threats (54%) is important,
and should be read in conjunction with the number of respondents citing
experience of murder within their family (2%), of murder of an employer (1%),
and of murder of a fellow employee (10%). Murder was a very real possibility for
those living on farms during “Land Reform”, and death threats were thus severely
traumatising for the individuals concerned. This alone is a form of
psychological torture.
Other forms of
psychological torture include being forced to watch beatings (43%) and having
one’s children forced to watch beatings (29%). This form of psychological
warfare was a standard technique practised by guerrillas during the liberation
war and was revived during “Land Reform” to instill obedience and terror in the
population. Typically, a compulsory late night meeting (“pungwe”) would be called by the farm’s resident war
veterans and ZANU PF youth militia. Failure to attend would result in severe
punishment. At the meeting, farm workers would be forced to sing songs in
support of ZANU PF, dance, chant slogans and affirm their loyalty to the party.
Scapegoats, often branded as MDC supporters, would be chosen to receive public
beatings. Sometimes fellow workers were forced to beat each other to demonstrate
their loyalty to the ZANU-PF cause; the sample reports that 29% of respondents
were forced to intimidate others. Often sleep deprivation would occur as pungwes would continue throughout the night. The enormous
damage done to the sensitive mental state of children through personal
experience of these late-night pungwes
and the associated
beatings is one of the many tragedies of recent Zimbabwean
history.
It is disturbing that
44% of those surveyed reported that they themselves had been
assaulted.
Let us remember that
the population of farm workers was 1.8 million people. Whilst this study does
not yet claim to be nationally representative, it will surely represent a huge
number of people, several hundreds of thousands, who have been assaulted as a
direct tactic in “Land Reform”. Of the sample, 11% of respondents report
sustaining permanent injuries from assaults.
The role of the
police should be mentioned here. 20% of respondents report being arrested
without having a charge laid against them, and 13% report being detained
illegally, i.e. for a period longer than 48 hours. These violations were
committed by the State police force, the Zimbabwe Republic Police
(ZRP).
The 2% of respondents
who reported murder and 2% reporting rape represent a relatively small
proportion of our sample. However, the gravity of these crimes, and the huge
size of the farm worker population, means that these figures should not be taken
lightly. In addition, rape is traditionally accepted as hugely underreported in
these kinds of surveys because of the nature of the crime and the stigma that
attaches to it.
Also illuminating,
when compared to the 67% of respondents who say they were forced to join
ZANU-PF, is the 5% of farm workers who say they were forced to join the MDC.
Later, when we consider the perpetrators of crimes, we will see that not a
single respondent cites MDC members as perpetrators of violations against
themselves, against their employer or against fellow employees, whereas 42%, 49%
and 57% of respondents cite ZANU PF members as perpetrators for crimes against
themselves, their employers and their fellow employees respectively. Those who
insist on saying that there has been violence on both sides of the political
divide are wrong. There is a stark qualitative and quantitative difference in
the roles MDC and ZANU-PF have played in political violence during “Land
Reform”. In almost all instances of political violence during “Land Reform”,
perpetrators are either members of ZANU-PF, or allied in some other way to State
power, and victims are either politically un-affiliated or members of the
MDC.
These violations are
all described in detail in the series of qualitative interviews from which the
following extracts are taken:
Farm Worker 7
described how her house was burnt down after an assault and the difficulties of
getting a police response or medical treatment:
My house at the farm was burnt down so I just sought
a place for my kids to stay. There is nothing that I could do because all my
belongings were gutted by fire. What happened is that they first beat me up and
injured me in the process and they asked us to leave. We just moved a short
distance away and on our return we discovered that they had burnt down the
houses. They were saying that the country was not won using the pen; it was won
using
the gun so we were accused of wanting to give away
the country to the whites. We did not do anything. We were just accused of
voting for MDC, quite a number of us were beaten up at the farm, the five of us.
I do not even know where the MDC meetings are held. I do not know why these
people thought that we were MDC members. I have four girls. The one is 22, the
other 18, the other 13 and the last is this one who is 4 years old. Because of
the beating I was injured around the eye area. They beat me with clubs. We
reported the issue so that we could get help with medical attention but the
police officers just came and they did not do anything at all. We reported at X
police station. They did not give us a response, they just said that they had
recorded the case and they now had it in their files. At the hospital I did not
get any help either. They just gave me a prescription which I was not able to
buy because my house had been burnt down. We lost some blankets, clothes; I and
my kids do not have anything to wear right now, maize, plates, containers,
sunflower seed and peanuts.
Farm Worker 11
described how he and some colleagues were tortured and then forced to move as
the police refused to investigate their case:
They told us to go back home. I do not know where
they got the youths, whether they were from X or from the Border Gezi camps, I
have no idea. Then they sent them to our houses. They came to my house and asked
me to come out and I complied and they said that they wanted to know what had
happened to the things that had been stolen from the farm. I told them that I
had no information regarding that. I told them that they could not ask me that
information. They asked me why I didn’t know that some people had stolen some
things and why I had helped the white man to move his belongings. And they asked
why only the leaders had gone to help the white man pack. We told him that we
were the ones who were closer to him, we stayed closer to him and we were the
ones that were available since it was indicated that the house was wanted as a
matter of urgency. We were then taken, all of us. It was me A, B was also there,
I mentioned them by name, C was also taken , we were driving the tractors and
the other one was driving the lorry and the other one was a manager. We were
taken and we were made to lie on the ground with one with his head this side,
another with his head this side and another with his head this side. And they
told us to sleep on the ground. This happened at home in the evening. So we were
made to make grids that they walked on top of as they did their
toyi-toyi on top of us, on our backs. It was S and his youth
who were doing this. There were quite a number of them. When it dawned to me
that we were going to die unnecessarily I decided to go against the rules and
quickly got up when it had dawned to me that I was going to be hurt because they
were stepping on me. We were then beaten up with some knobkerries that they had
when we rose from the ground. So when the others saw that I was being beaten up
because I had risen from the ground they also got up because they were also in
pain. They beat us all over, on the back, ha –a all over. Can you see that there
are cracks here and there? [Indicates scars.] It is the whip that they used on me. I don’t know
what it was like which caused all this. As they were beating me up I realized
that there was nothing that I could do so I jumped over the security fence. I
managed to escape, then we went to the police station and we briefed the police
officers what had transpired. The police officers said “alright, stay here, so
that we see who else comes” So D came, C came and we told them what had
transpired and we slept in the cells at the police station. We woke up the next
day and we waited. It was now 9 o’clock and nothing had been done and then we
enquired about the progress. They told us their case was a difficult one because
it was a political case. The police officer that I was talking to was named X.
He was the leader. The other one was called Y. “By the way, we know who beat us
up”, I told them. “And they are also known at this police station, they are
always here with assault cases.” Then he said “ ha –a – a with such cases, you
just have to see to it that you pack your belongings and seek an alternative
place to stay.” Then we came back and we told the white man how the case was
handled. I asked for the tractor and trailer so that I could load my belongings
and leave the farm and the white man said “alright, go ahead, I hope they will
not deny you since they are now claiming that the tractors now belong to them. I
have no idea on where they got the information that they are the owners of both
the farm and the tractors” I went to the farm and I spoke to the settlers and
they gave me the go ahead to use the tractor and leave. They told me to pack all
my belongings and leave for good since they did not want to see me again. He
told me to leave together with “our” whites. I said all was well with me and I
got the tractor and loaded all my belongings. I had a radio as we were loading,
apparently my wife had left the farm earlier on, others were helping me with the
loading. Either [war veterans] H, I
or J took my radio and I never got it back. As you know, I had worked at the
farm for 17 years, we used to get handsome bonuses hence I had quite a number of
belongings, I had my wardrobes, etc. so those people who were outside helping me
with the loading told C that if he tells on them that they had taken my radio
they were going to beat him thoroughly such that he will not even be able to
take belongings. I only discovered that my radio was missing later when I was
now unloading. I questioned the whereabouts of my radio and C then explained to
me what had become of my radio. I went to the police station when I came back to
return the tractor and there I told Y about my missing radio. So it was either
H, I or K had taken my radio. The police officer told me that there was nothing
that they could do about anything relating to the farm invasions in the country;
they could not get involved in those issues. I asked them if my radio belonged
to the country. They agreed with me that the radio did not belong to the country
and I said “so”? Then they told me that it was difficult to speak to the war
veterans and they advised me to rest the case since I had managed to take all my
other belongings. I totally lost my radio and I never saw it again. I stayed
where I had moved to and only left when I was called to
Harare.
Farm Worker 6
described a series of arson attacks by war veterans and the police response to
these attacks:
I am one of the victims, my kitchen was burnt down
and some windows of my house were smashed. A’s windows were smashed too. There
was also B, C, D and another guy named E, let’s just say the whole compound,
whose windows were smashed. They just used to smash all over. Several of my
items were broken, some of them went missing. There is a bicycle that went
missing, it was stolen, my sofas and other things which were in the kitchen were
burnt, my clothes and my shoes were burnt. [They did this because] they were saying that we were refusing to vacate the
farm so we were supporting Murungu, so they decided to burn down our things. So
they just managed to burn down the kitchen and they fled. We were in the bedroom
with my family. We just heard people shouting that the house was on fire. That’s
when we went out and noticed that the kitchen was in flames. We could not save
it because it was already [nearly] burnt
down. In some cases there are quite a number of people who were injured because
some of them were burnt; those who slept in the kitchens were burnt. For
example, there is Elder F, he sustained burns with his two kids and there is
also a chap named G who sustained burns on his hand. They were taken to hospital
at Murungu’s expense, I am the one who actually drove them to hospital and
brought them back. The police were called but they used to come after the
perpetrators of violence had already left the scene. Sometimes they used to come
two or three days after a case had been reported to them. They were not of any
help because they just used to enquire about what had taken place and they would
be told that there were some houses which were burnt down etc. They would then
enquire about the whereabouts of the perpetrators of the crimes and we would
tell them that they were at the base. They would go to the base but we never
heard that anything happened to the wrong-doers, the perpetrators would just
remain there living at the base. If G and his crew were called and questioned
about it they would just deny it and the police just left it like
that.
Respondent 9 was not
a farm worker but a private guard providing security on the farm. When he
attempted to intervene in the widely publicized murder of a farmer, the
assailants took note of his identity and he was later found and
assaulted.
A and myself were attacked in the beer hall. We
arrived at the beer hall; we sat down and bought two beers. As we were sitting
we were approached by two youths who grabbed our hands and said “these are the
guys from X who came to our base to fight us on Y Farm”. At that moment there
was nothing that we could do, they pulled and dragged us to where a meeting was
being held. There were many people there at the time. When we got there we were
asked to sit in the centre and there were plenty of people surrounding us. They
asked us, “Since you were at Y Farm who had you come to fight?” The one who was
speaking was the leader; they asked us again, “what was your purpose for
visiting Y farm?” We told them that we had been sent by Murungu who had raised
us on his radio so that we would help him as there was a thief in his home. They
did not listen to my story. They insisted that the radio message was implicating
them [in the
farmer’s murder]. They further insisted that
our mission was to fight the war vets. I tried to explain but I was told that
this was not the time for any explanations. They then broke into song, shouting
that these people must be beaten. We were asked to lie down on our bellies. One
war veteran jumped and stamped on my back and I just fainted. A knows the name
of this war vet. They then began to pour water on me thinking that I had died, I
then regained my consciousness. I had fainted and while I was unconscious they
beat up A with baton sticks and sticks as well as electrical flex. They then
carried A and myself to a vehicle and drove us to their base. When we got to the
base they did not stop there with us, but we stopped at the road side and four
more people jumped into the vehicle. While we were at the roadside, they then
began to beat us again. Some of us did not know what exactly was taking place.
We were not released there and then; they kept us there for a while until they
caught the others. They then put us in handcuffs and beat us again. There is a
guy by the name of B who actually lost his hand; it had to be amputated at the
hospital after the beating. He now has one arm. There was a guy called C; we
used to work with C. C is the one who managed to escape out of all the people
who were captured from our base. He climbed up a mountain. He realized that
things were not in order when he went up the mountain because he could see
everything that was happening downhill from the mountain top. So when they took
me and A they left us at the base. We could not even get up, we were so
thoroughly beaten we could not even walk on our own. We just lay there. We were
left there and they took some of our colleagues were taken to the war veterans
youth base. The war veterans had their base in Z. They also took our company car
and they went with it. C then came down from the mountain and communicated with
the farmers through the radio and informed them about what had happened; he also
communicated with the police. So he communicated with the farmers and the
farmers arrived at our base in a space of about two minutes in their open trucks
and they took me and A to W Hospital. The police are the one that made a follow
up of those who had been taken. As for what happened next we have no idea
because we were already in hospital. A police report was taken when we were
already in hospital. We were injured to the extent that we had to be quickly
rushed to hospital; there was no time to go to the police for questioning
because we were badly injured. I felt a severe pain in my chest. My chest was
badly injured. They took an x-ray. My chest was not in good order; even now I
cannot even carry something on top of my head because I begin to feel some pain
in my chest. Even if I carry something light, I begin to feel pain in my chest.
That pain is still there and I still feel some pain in my left hand. It’s not
working as much as it used to in the past. I feel the pain if I carry something
with my left hand and if it’s a cloudy day I also feel some
pain.
I can’t even hoe with that hand in the same manner
that I used to in the past. I can’t even carry something that is as heavy as 20
kg with that hand anymore. I have a medical report that has to do with the
beatings that I was subjected to. When I was discharged from hospital I decided
to resign from work because I was afraid of being
murdered.
Farm Worker 11 was a
manager and was forced to flee the scene of a mass assault in fear for his
life:
We woke up and went to work. We heard the bell
ringing around 8 in the morning. We had started working around 6 o’clock. We
heard the bell ring, ngoh! ngoh! ngoh! And they were singing revolutionary
songs. The war collaborators led the ringing of the bell. So they were coming
from the eastern direction towards the west where we were. This is when they
started singing revolutionary songs, and they would sing songs nominating
individuals, discrediting me, “Down with X, he is forcing employees to work!”
They were just singing revolutionary songs until they reached us and they
questioned us as to why we had gone to work. They approached those employees who
were working on the tobacco in the barns, you know, it was at that stage where
it was being harvested from the fields. That is the place where they started
beating up fellow employees. Some employees started running away; they jumped
over the Durawall with a security fence coming towards us. We had no idea that
some other settlers had hidden in ambush some distance in front of us. The
settlers had circled us so that if employees tried to flee in whatever direction
they failed because they had surrounded us, they took other fellow farm workers
so that they could circle us. The other farm workers were from other surrounding
farms. So we had no idea that they had encircled us. On the other hand, other
fellow employees were approaching us and they were being beaten up. Some were
being beaten by whips, and some were advancing carrying the knives that I
referred to earlier on. Then we saw how some fellow employees were being beaten,
and I said “Fellows, let’s run away”. There were also other settlers in the
direction that we decided to head, there were also other settlers in the other
direction that we wanted to head to and cross the river, you see. So we all then
realized that there was no way out, we were surrounded by the settlers, and it
was now every man for himself. The settlers had blocked all escape routes, they
had surrounded us, they knew that employees were in the fields and they were
going to flee in that direction of the farm from the fields with the intention
of hiding in the thicker forests. There was a crowd with knobkerries in whatever
direction that we tried to take because these settlers had surrounded us. I
remember that this is what we decided to do. I acted as if I wanted to return to
the fields and then I slid into the stream. There is a big stream with reeds. I
jumped into the stream and swam then I hid among the reeds and I lay in the
reeds. The aim of most of the settlers was to deal with me and my fellow
foreman. They started searching all over for me in different directions but they
passed me without noticing me. They went forward after passing me and were
searching. I realized that I now had an opportunity after they had passed me,
otherwise they could catch me as I hid in the reeds. I got out of the stream and
ran to another farm called Y. There were no people at this farm as they were
taken and they were amongst the gang that was hunting us down. So I fled and
stayed where there were no people. Others were caught and beaten up. These
people who were beaten up were there, we had fled. I bumped into another crew
coming from another farm on my way back. Among the crew was A, another war
veteran called B and C. These are the people who I briefed with regards to what
had transpired. They said “now that you fled and left the kids fighting who do
you think was going to stop them?” I said “I had no opportunity to make people
stop fighting; I was now fleeing to save my dear life.” They said “ok, then go
your way but we would like to have a word with you at Z where we are going to
hold a big meeting on Friday.” These war veterans were rather tired from what
they had been doing at another farm. Right, at around 4:30 I went with a bucket
around the dam to the paddock area. I then gathered that people were actually
being beaten by a crowd of youths right at my house as the youth, a large number
of them were beating the drums. My family had also fled, they had
left.
They were now gathering my chickens, ducks and
rabbits. They had set up a fire and were now roasting these chickens as they
sang revolutionary songs. My wives were lucky in that they managed to lock up
the house and fled when they saw that things were not in good order anymore,
they disappeared. So when they returned with the intention of looking for me in
the house [they saw
the commotion and remained at a safe distance].
The youths did not break into my house; I do not want to lie. They just gathered
my livestock and roasted it as they sang revolutionary songs. So I sat at some
distance away from them. I have no idea how my wives found out where I was
sitting, perhaps they saw me. They came with the rest of my family and joined me
where I was sitting and we just sat there together. Around 5 o’clock, 6 o’clock
7 o’clock, we just sat there, 8 o’clock in the evening we were still just
sitting. There was nothing that we could do. We had no food; we had not eaten
anything since 8 am. Our children were with us. So we then sat there with no
other plan in mind. I then decided to leave where we were resting as it was in
the forest and mosquitoes were starting to bite us. We then went into a ploughed
field at the next farm and we stayed in this field, we did not light a fire. So
the youth spent the whole night at my house, they did not see any one, the
foremen and the mechanics had fled. But the other general hands and the likes of
F were there. The drums were being played.
Some other people just ignored and fled. I assumed
that the youth were now tired at dawn, around 5 o’clock, 6 o’clock, 7 o’clock
but then they started gathering the chickens again, roasting them and eating in
the morning and they finally left. We had now settled on a hill top where we
could clearly see the view of what was transpiring at my homestead. We then saw
that these youths had left. We first saw the white man coming on a motor bike
and he turned at the boundary. We saw all this view from the hill. We then saw
some white man called D removing the tractor that we had left in the fields; he
took it to the workshop. We had left the tractor in the field just like that. My
family and I were witnesses to this. My wife was the first to gather the courage
to go back home. I tried to stop her fearing that she could be beaten up but she
said “no, I am going home with my children” my other two daughters followed her
home and opened the house and they observed. The youths had not touched anything
in my house save for my livestock and some logs which they broke to make a fire
for roasting the meat from my chickens.
Farm Worker 11 then
described the meetings he was forced to attend:
We used to sing their songs together with them when
they came for meetings. They used to round up people to attend meetings and this
is when we were made to sing revolutionary songs together with them. “The Boers
go your way, Boers what do you want in our country Zimbabwe, a country full of
milk and honey.” These are the songs that were sung, “Down with this X,” they
would call us by name by those who said “Tsvangirai, you will have the children
murdered.” We did not even know what they meant by saying “Tsvangirai, you will
have the children murdered.” They would also say the number of MDC supporters
had ballooned at the farm. These are some of the first signs that we saw that
indicated that things were changing in 2003.
Farm Worker 12
described how people attended political meetings through fear for their own
personal safety:
People were not beaten up but they used to attend
these meetings as a security measure and to make sure that nothing bad was said
about you. It was a kind of protection from fear of being beaten up since at
that time when people were beaten up and in the event that they reported the
incident to the police the police was not of any help because they just used to
say that they do not interfere in political related matters. So people just used
to attend these meetings as a defence mechanism . .
.
Farm Worker 15
described the nightly pungwes which took place:
The war veterans came in peace when they came to us
the workers but the only Jambanja that was a problem is that they wanted us to
attend their meetings every night. They would ask us to attend so that we could
sing. We were made to sing liberation songs as I indicated earlier. We would
sing and go back home when they were now tired. They would also instruct us that
none of us was suppose to go to work the next day. We were labelled the British,
Second British Farm Workers.
We the farm workers were labelled the Second and the
whites were labelled the First. They were saying that it was our fault that the
whites had not vacated the farms because we were still working for them. So we
were labelled to be British and this is why only 1 out of 10 farm workers were
given land. I think none of the farm workers who I worked with was given a piece
of land. They promised us land and they took down the names of those who were
interested in land, but at the end we were told that we were on the waiting
list. They would say that they were waiting for land that was going to be made
available in A. We would just be on the waiting list forever. The meetings were
called after working hours, around 6:30 pm. We were just called to attend the
meetings around that time. There was no fixed time that the meetings were
supposed to end; it all depended on how tired the settlers were on that very
day. We could go up to 11 pm – 12pm when they were not tired. We would be made
to dance at the meetings.
When respondents were
asked about the violations experienced by their fellow farm workers the
following results were obtained:
The results are
similar to what respondents described themselves as having experienced
personally. However there are a few significant differences. The rates for
murder and rape of 10% and 11% respectively are very high. The fact that 68% of
respondents indicated that fellow employees were assaulted is also cause for
concern. This indicates significant degrees of violence being employed on the
farms for the purposes of political intimidation.
Note too that 38% of
respondents reported that children on the farm were forced to watch beatings.
This will have grave implications for the next generation of Zimbabweans, and
their mental health.
When questioned about
the experiences of their fellow employees, farm workers reported numerous
examples from which the following instances are
extracted:
Farm Worker 3
described a case of abduction and torture that took place on the
farm:
I remember the old man who headed the cattle section
was abducted for a week. He said he did not even know where they had taken him
to because everything happened in the dark. They later just dumped him by the
roadside. He said he was assaulted and tortured. His name was X. He was away for
about a week. The case was reported but no action was taken. The police no
longer cared about anything concerning the war
vets.
Farm Worker 8
described some of the assaults on the farm:
They did not beat Murungu but they used to beat up
the workers from the compound. The farm workers were beaten up, sometime it was
because from what the workers said about their fellows to the settlers. They
would say so and so does this and that to Murungu. So the settlers would take
their victims to their base. If you were not convincing in answering their
questions you would be beaten up. Yes they got beaten, the likes of A, B, C and
D. They were beaten; they were beaten because they were the managers at the
farm. So the farm invaders had a grudge with the managers. So if you as a
manager said something or did something you could have a misunderstanding with a
fellow worker. If a worker got overwhelmed by some tasks he would go and report
to the settlers accusing the managers of abuse. The settlers would promise to
take care of it. The individuals would be summoned by the youths after working
hours and they would be beaten for abusing other farm workers. They usually used
whips made from cattle hide and some fan belts. I personally did not face this
problem, but my brother, E did. E was beaten up because of his brother, which is
me. They were saying, “Your brother is a know-all. We tell him to go to the base
and he just does as he pleases.” This happened at the beer hall, my brother
answered back rudely to the settlers. The settlers took him to the base and he
was beaten up by some four guys. The guys who beat him were F, G, H and I. They
assaulted him with wire, with barbed wire, they beat him three times on his back
and they also beat him on his face and his hands. He was hurt and he has some
scars. E-e-h, Murungu then called the police. The police officers did not
come... We did not get to know the reason why they did not come. Most of the
times when the policemen were called they would say that they didn’t have a
motor vehicle to use. This is what they used to say most of the time. But E was
taken to the hospital in Z by Murungu. He was attended to and he came back. I am
not so sure if he still has the medical records because quite a number of things
were lost in the Jambanja. He may have lost them or
something.
Farm Worker 22
described how vicious dogs belonging to an A2 settler killed two farm
workers.
The dogs belonged to A. He had about 15 dogs. They
used to bite people. There are people who were bitten last year and two of them
died. They were bitten and torn and they died later. I don’t remember their
names but they were men. If you were found in the citrus section the dogs would
be let loose on you and they would bite and tear you up and you would die
because there was no way that a person could survive that. It was not even
talked about that there are people who were bitten by dogs at A’s. I heard that
from my nephew, he is the one who used to work there because I had already left
the place. This was not even publicized. The law was not being enforced because
these deaths were not even publicized.
Violations against Farm Workers’
Employers
Respondents reported
the following percentages of human rights violations experienced by their
employers:
There are some
interesting aspects to this chart. Note that in general, violation levels are
significantly lower than those reported against farm workers. This coincides
with the data reported by farmers in Reckless
Tragedy: Irreversible?.
By a fairly
significant margin the highest violation respondents reported their employers as
having suffered is ‘torture’. This is followed by death threats, and whilst
political violations still maintain high levels, they are not in the same realm
as those reported against farm workers. This makes perfect sense if one accepts
the thesis of the authors of this report, that the main purpose of “Land Reform”
was the political subjugation of the farm workers.
Note, for example,
that according to this data one was more likely to be assaulted if one was a
worker (44%) than if one was a farmer (33%). This pattern is replicated for
every single violation bar one: respondents reported that their employers were
very slightly more likely to have experienced “Arrest without a Charge” (22%)
than they were (20%). In all other cases respondents reported that they had
experienced violations to higher, or much higher, degrees than their employers
in every single category.
This is hugely
significant. International media around the world focused on pictures of white
farmers being attacked, murdered or evicted, whilst their workers were barely
mentioned.
However, for every
one white farmer there were over a hundred workers, each of whom, if our survey
data is replicated across the population, suffered more violations of a worse
nature than the employer did. Farm workers and their families represent some 12
– 16% of the total population of Zimbabwe. They should have been amongst the
first in line for consideration in any genuinely well-intentioned land reform
programme. Instead, they were subjected to a sustained and systematic
psychological and physical assault, indicating a motive other than land
reform.
Quantitatively, farm
workers as a victim group outnumber farmers by a factor of 100 to 1.
Qualitatively, farm
workers often suffered much worse assaults, and were indeed subjected to worse
human rights violations, than their employers. However, every individual victim,
whether employer or employee, is deserving of respect and full enjoyment of the
right to justice.
Farm worker 4
described the abduction of the farmer and farm manager that took place on their
farm:
There was a time when farmer X and the late farm
manager named Y were taken to a place called Z. They both came back looking very
sad. They did not disclose to us whether they had been beaten or not. We could
see that they were very sad as the manager’s eyes were red, I am sure that he
had been beaten up at Z because it was the settlers
camp.
Farm Worker 5
described how the war veterans purposefully treated the livestock cruelly in
order to lure the farmer back out to the farm:
A meeting was held on another day, I do not remember
the exact day. We were asked to open the paddocks for cattle and sheep and the
pigsties for the pigs. The war veterans asked us to do that. So I did not rise
in the crowd because I had noticed that some other people were being beaten up
so I decided to keep quiet and remain seated. This is when I was made to stand
up and they asked me why I was refusing to stand up. I rose up and I was clapped
on my face by some war veteran named X because I refused to stand up and go and
mix up the animals. I didn’t do it because the animals were not supposed to be
mixed together. The pigs, cattle and sheep were all mixed together; the chickens
and the geese were also mixed together. Animals are not supposed to be mixed up.
For example, the boars are not supposed to stay together, they cannot be mixed
up; it’s not possible. These two boars fought and the two of them died after
they had been mixed. So they called me when I was at my house and they asked me
to skin the pigs. Varungu were here in Harare at that time. So I did not have
the permission to slaughter the pigs from Varungu. So I refused to skin them and
told the war veterans to leave them like that even if they were to rot until the
owner saw them and he then gave me the go ahead to skin them and give them to
the war veterans to eat. Some of the war veterans knew this rule of rearing
animals, and some wanted to use that as a tactic to make Murungu come to the
farm quickly. Murungu was no longer staying at the farm so the settlers said
that if they mixed the animals Murungu was definitely going to quickly come to
the farm. However, he did not manage to come. He later came with some police
officers. What he did is that he phoned and he said that we were to leave the
pigs like that and it didn’t matter if they were
dead.
Farm Worker 6
described how his employer was physically assaulted on three separate
occasions:
Yes there were incidents when
[Murungu] was beaten up, he just heard the invaders saying “we
do not want to see Murungu; he must leave for good together with his people.”
The first time, Murungu left his house and went to the borehole. So when he went
to the borehole to check it out, the war veterans followed him and beat him up
and they questioned him why he was refusing to vacate the farm. They told him
that the farm was no longer his because they had acquired the farm. There were
quite a number of them; I think about 12 or 8. Some of them had knobkerries and
some had rods. He was mostly injured on his back because they beat him more on
his back.
The second time, they came and they got inside his
security fence and called him. When they called him he came out and some of them
attacked him saying “you are refusing to vacate this place so we are beating
you” and they beat him up. Fortunately there were some other people who were
inside the security fence so they are the ones who rushed to his rescue. The war
veterans got scared and they ran away.
On the last incident they beat him up in the fields.
He had gone to the fields to check on the employees who were working in the
fields. They stopped him on his way back and told him that they wanted to kill
him because he was refusing to vacate the farm. So they started beating him and
he was not able to fight back.
Respondent 9, a
security guard, described the murder of a white farmer which was widely reported
at the time:
We once went to react at a farm named X Farm. We went
to X with the intention of assisting after a white woman had called and told us
that the yard was invaded by thieves. She wanted some assistance so she called
and told us that there were some thieves who were in her garden. Our rule as the
reaction team was that if anyone called and was in need of assistance we had to
be at the place within five minutes. I am beginning to forget Murungu’s name but
it was a woman who called because the husband had already been murdered. What
happened is that this woman phoned us as her husband had been killed by party
members, I don’t know if it was the war veterans or the Born
Frees who had murdered him. We don’t know that but there
were quite a number of people. So when we arrived at the farm we discovered that
there were some war veterans who were there after we had seen them beating drums
at Murungu’s main gate. We quickly realized that it was Jambanja and we decided
to make a U-turn so that we could get away from Jambanja but the war veterans
identified us as soon as we made the U-turn. They identified us because of the
uniform that we were wearing and they also knew our car. We were 8 and there
were quite a number of them, about 20 to 25 or 30. In our reaction team there
was Constable A, B, C, D and . . . sorry I am beginning to forget the names.
There was E also. We then saw the police vehicle coming which was behind us. So
when the police vehicle saw us they flashed us and they asked us to go back to
the scene. There were some black boots, police officers who are part of the
police reaction team, who were in the car. We then went back together to the
scene with the police. So when we got there the police started by silencing the
mayhem which was there because the people were singing and beating drums. Then
the youth started disappearing one by one from the scene when they saw that the
police had come armed with baton sticks and had some tear gas. So when the
police were putting the house in order, we took the opportunity to flee the
scene after we had concluded that we could get into trouble if we remained at
the scene. We were afraid because we had been told not to get involved in
politics because we were just there to safeguard Varungu’s assets. Had Murungu
phoned and told us that it was a political issue we would not even have reacted
by going there. We would have just called the police to attend the scene. The
Murungu had told us that the house had been broken into by thieves so she wanted
protection. She knew that we would not have reacted had she told us the
truth.
Later we learnt that war veterans wanted Murungu’s
farm so when the war veterans got to the farm they beat him up until he died. We
heard he was beaten up and he died on the spot. The wife had not yet noticed
that her husband was dead because the husband was not killed in the yard. I
think they forced their way and then she locked herself in the house. She only
got out when the police officers came to the farm. The body was later found in
the cave. This really affected us to the extent that we just wanted to resign
because we were afraid to keep on working in that area because there was a risk
that we could lose our lives anytime. We realized that if we kept on working in
that area we could lose our lives or we could get hurt since we were based in
the farms
Farm Worker 10
described an act of bravery on the part of the
farmer:
X then mobilised everybody in the compound to go and
bring down the fence, ordering the workers to be right at the forefront. X was
one of the war veterans, and he ordered it with the youth militia. We were all
rounded up but I did not want to go along with what the others wanted us to do
to farmer A. My inner religious self just told me that I couldn’t take part in
murder of my boss who had looked after us so well, so I was just lingering at
the back of the crowd. They ordered us the farm workers to be at the front
whilst they followed behind. They said it is us the farm workers who should face
the farmer and do the actual killing while they played a background role. When
the boss saw the crowd at his gate he realised that the situation was very
serious. I was standing a bit far and my husband was somewhere even further,
ready to run away because we were both very embarrassed by this awkward
situation. I was surprised to see this other very tall woman who also worked
with me in the main house, standing at the very front of the gate. I think that
day the boss saw that he was facing imminent death but he displayed a lot of
bravery this man A. He got into the house. His family snuck out through the back
but he himself came out and went straight through the crowded gate on
foot.
Right in front of the whole multitude of people. When
he came out some people ran towards him wielding axes but nobody had the final
guts to strike him. They were pushing and shoving closer and closer to him, many
of them stumbling and falling over each other in a melee. He brushed through the
axe-wielding crowd, rushing to his mother’s house nearby. People just waved the
axes at him to no avail. Although we were blocking the gate he just shoved past.
People rushed at him but nobody had the guts to kill him. That day the Murungu
acted like a demented animal and just walked straight past the jeering crowd and
went to his mother’s house without being harmed, but still the crowd just
followed behind him shouting abuse and throwing axes and all sorts of things at
him. He got into his mother’s homestead and stayed
there.
Perpetrators of
Violations
The true significance
of the widespread and systematic violations against farm workers and farmers
becomes clearer when one considers the perpetrators of these violations. The
following graph shows the percentage of respondents citing particular
perpetrators for violations against themselves, i.e. against individual farm
workers.
Notice that nearly
all of these perpetrators are connected to the State, either directly or
indirectly. Respondents cited “War Veterans” most frequently (77%) as
perpetrators of the violations they had experienced. This corroborates all
first-hand narrative accounts of the violations perpetrated on the farms, which
frequently state that one or two genuine War Veterans occupied the farms,
normally accompanied by several party youths who were evidently far too young to
have fought in the war. These youths are described above as “Border Gezi/Youth
Militia” and are cited by 59% of farm workers in our sample. These farm
occupiers were the perpetrators of the great majority of all violations
perpetrated on the farms.
In addition, 11 out
of 26 respondents (42%) cited ZANU-PF members as perpetrators, whereas 0 out of
21 (0%) cited MDC as perpetrators, the lowest of all perpetrator categories.
Attempts to spread blame for political violence equally between ZANU PF and the
MDC are clearly spurious.
Farm Worker 23
described the political allegiance of the perpetrators who committed violations
on the farms:
The settlers were ZANU. They said so themselves at
the various meetings that they convened and it was only the ZANU meetings where
force would be used for us to attend. The MDC? A-a-ah they never did that. We
were forced to buy ZANU party cards because we feared for our
lives.
It is interesting to
note that the next highest perpetrator recorded by our sample is Traditional
Leaders with 40%. Since the traditional chiefs have been subject to ZANU-PF
political interference, they thus formed part of the organisational chain
employed by the Government to carry out “spontaneous” farm
invasions.
The Zimbabwe Republic
Police, the next State participant, will receive further attention in the next
section of this report, but note here that the 26% of our sample citing the
Uniformed Branch as perpetrators demonstrate categorically that this was a
State-sanctioned onslaught.
This figure should be
considered alongside the other branches of the ZRP who perpetrated violations,
namely PISI (4%), CID (6%), Support Unit (8%), general “Police” (9%) and the
Riot Squad (14%). Other uniformed forces who perpetrated violations include the
Zimbabwe National Army (10%) and staff of the Department of National Parks and
Wildlife (1%).
Significant too is
the high level of Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) involvement. The fact
that 13% of respondents report violations against them by the CIO further
suggests the involvement of the State, but in a somewhat more sinister manner.
Undercover CIO operatives went on to farms to engineer the systematic onslaught
against farmers and farm workers, but the Government did not wish it to be known
that these attacks were State driven. (Technically, the CIO does not exist
anymore as such because it has been incorporated into the President’s Office,
who were also reported as perpetrators by 6% of
respondents.)
Individuals in
positions of political authority, and supposed civil servants, were also
frequently cited by respondents. For example, 16% of respondents cited MPs as
having perpetrated violations against them. Councillors (14%), Provincial
Governors (6%), Provincial Administrators (5%) and District Administrators (11%)
are all present in large numbers, especially considering that these figures
represent perpetrators of violations committed against the respondents
themselves. Should these figures be replicated on a larger scale, it will be
very disturbing if 1 in 10 farm workers say that the District Administrator
personally perpetrated violations against them.
It is also very
interesting that 15% of farm workers reported that their fellow workers were
involved in committing violations against them. Whilst this is nowhere close to
the involvement of war veterans and youth militia, it nonetheless requires some
explanation. On many farms across the country, over their 20 years in power
ZANU-PF had set up a semiformal political network, where a few select workers on
farms formed a ZANU PF committee. Where this was not done, the war veterans and
youth militia who invaded the farm would immediately set one up and recruit from
farm workers sympathetic to ZANU PF. This minority of workers, often tempted by
promises of personal gain, thereafter perpetrated violations against their
employers and their fellow workers.
Farm Worker 24
described being severely beaten by the Presidential Guards, specifically because
he was a supporter of the MDC:
There was violence after Varungu had vacated the farm
and moved to Harare. I remained behind at the farm and I was using the lorry and
at that time I was now working in X together with A. I was working for
[a donor agency].
I was now employed elsewhere. So we used to
work for about 21 days a month in X. We had got permission to use Murungu’s
lorry. What happened is that we used to work for 21 days and we would be off
duty for 7 days and we would come back home. What happened is that we were off
duty and we had come home. We were at the workshop welding a broken trailer and
then suddenly a Land Cruiser came to the farm. It was a Zimbabwe National Army
Land Cruiser. It went and parked in the compound and they stood right in the
middle of the compound armed with AK47
rifles.
They were Presidential Guards; there were the 10 of
them. I was in the workshop and I just saw them, all over the compound. I didn’t
know what they wanted because they went to the store keepers’ house. When
Varungu vacated the farm they left everything that had to do with the store in
the storekeeper’s hands to use for his own personal use. The store-keeper was
not around when they came. The shepherds who were responsible for the sheep were
given the sheep for personal use when Murungu vacated the farm. The person who
was responsible for looking after the cattle and the one who was responsible for
milking the cows were given the cattle and cows for personal use and the store
was given to the storekeeper. So I just assumed that they wanted to see the
storekeeper when I saw the car parked at the storekeeper’s house. What happened
when I was busy welding is that the Presidential Guards came and asked to see
the driver. There was a chap who suspected that the driver that they wanted to
see was me so he came round the workshop with the intention of tipping me off
because he knew that I was in the workshop where I was busy welding. I at the
same time had run out of welding rods so I got out of the workshop and headed
for A’s house to ask for some more welding rods. I got to A’s house where he was
busy shelling the maize. So I was already out of the workshop and I was at A’s
house by the time that chap got into the workshop to tip me off. So when I got
to A’s house one of the Presidential Guards who was armed with a gun arrived at
the same time as me and he told me that he was looking for the driver. He asked
for my name and I told him. He was holding a paper with a list of names. I also
told him that I was the driver. He asked me to follow him because they were
looking for me because I was a member of the MDC. He dragged me and then he
asked if A was the one who was shelling the maize. When A heard his name being
asked for he said no he wasn’t the one but rather he was B. The Presidential
Guard argued with him and insisted that he was A and A also argued and insisted
that his surname was B. They asked him to come along. They grabbed us both and
then we got to a place where people were drinking beer and they made us lie on
the ground and they started beating us up. It was at some other guy’s
house.
They started beating us up and my colleague cried and
I assumed that he was going to die on the spot. They used sticks like the ones
that are used as fire wood. We were beaten up and the sticks were breaking. I
was wearing a dust coat and I was asked to take it off and I was made to lie on
the ground. They beat us up on our backs. They grabbed A and dragged him to
where the people were drinking beer and they asked people about his surname.
Some of the people supported that his surname was A but A insisted that his
surname was B. The people also insisted that his surname was A and he insisted
that it was B and they kept on bashing him. In reality, he used both surnames, A
and B, but he was just afraid to own up as A. He was afraid since these guys
were armed with rifles, so he was afraid that they were probably going to murder
him. They accused us of being members of the MDC and I asked them why they were
beating us up. Most people fled the compound when we were being beaten up
because they were afraid that they could also be beaten. But they just beat up
the two of us because most of the people that they were looking for had fled.
They got into the car and drove off after they had finished beating us up. They
came back three days after the day that they had beaten us up. It happened in
2003. We were beaten so badly on our backs that one would dread looking at them.
You know when one is beaten up with a sjambok on their back, it will be marred
by lines and it will be red with clotted blood. Our backs were sore such that it
was even difficult for us to sit down. There was a lorry that belonged to
[the farmer] and A and I decided to go to the clinic that night,
on the very day that we were beaten up, soon after we had been bashed. We went
to the clinic and we saw [a nurse] and we
showed her our scars and she couldn’t help it and she started crying. On the
third day those same Presidential Guards returned and this time they came they
beat up a guy named C. The same people came back and they said that they were
looking for C and they got him and they beat him up. They also beat up his older
brother named D. They said that they were MDC
supporters.
Farm Worker 25
described how the groups of war veterans were made up of many unwilling
conscripts:
The real war veterans who we didn’t know, the ones
that we assumed to be war veterans, there were about 20 of them, but they also
came with the youths, some youngsters and some elderly people and they all
claimed to be war veterans. There were some people that we were familiar with in
that crowd who we knew very well and we knew that they were not war veterans. We
later bumped into those people and asked them why they came to the farm claiming
to be war veterans and they would tell you that they were forced to do
it…
Farm Worker 8
described the political affiliation of the war
veterans:
After three days they wanted to access the employees’
brains, the workers, as to where they stood. They started calling us one by one
to their base at the classrooms. They would ask us different questions. I was
once taken to the classroom where I was asked questions about politics. This is
because they thought the farm workers were on Murungu’s side so they did not
trust opposition party supporters. So they wanted to know if Murungu supported
the opposition party or the Government. They asked me, since I was a senior at
the farm, which political party I supported between the ruling ZANU-PF and the
opposition MDC. I told them that I could not tell them the political party that
I supported because it was my secret. They then assumed that I was in opposition
and they almost wanted to assault me but they did not beat me up. This is
because I was very argumentative such that they did not manage to beat me up. I
did not look as if I was afraid. Most of the time if you show that you are
terrified you are likely to be beaten up. If you are not scared you do not get
beaten up.
Farm Worker 11 also
described the political allegiances of the
perpetrators:
So you would hear songs discrediting other people,
especially myself, they used to say, “down with X,
[farmer] Y’s colleague”. This was because I was Y’s right hand
man. We used to organize work schedules with the white man in his office,
planning our work schedules every season. We would then meet with the foreman
and inform him of our plans. So it was after planning work schedules that they
used to discredit me because I was Y’s colleague because ‘they are always
together planning in the office’. This is when they started songs to discredit
me .They then started researching finding out those who were not ZANU-PF card
holders at the farm. They found out that the whole of top management were not
ZANU-PF card holders. The chairmen were sent to find out about this, those
chairmen that I talked about earlier. They were sent by ZANU-PF supporters from
their province where they came from. They came to find out about card holders
and they would question those of us who were not card holders why we didn’t want
to apply for cards. We would then answer them that no one is forced to be a card
holder; you are not supposed to be forced into being a card holder. So these
chairmen would take up the matter further up. Now when they held big rallies
they would discuss those who were not card holders at
[farm] A, accusing them of being auxiliary forces and of
being MDC supporters, including at B farm which was close to our farm, as well
as at C, with the chairmen. This is when they started labelling us to be MDC
supporters, from being Muzorewa’s auxiliary forces to being MDC supporters. At
that stage we did not know anything about MDC, we had not even heard about them
before; we did not know that such a party existed. I was labelled to be a ZAPU
supporter; they labelled me to be Dongo’s boyfriend. We were
labelled to be MDC supporters, this was now the issue, we were labelled to be
MDC supporters. We were asked to attend a big rally that was held in D in 2001,
on the 11, actually in June. I did not want to attend this rally because I had
no reason to attend so I did not attend. People were forced to attend, no one
was supposed to be absent at this meeting. It was not a work day; it was on a
Saturday afternoon. The youths made a follow up of those who did not want to
attend, they made rounds with a list of names per farm, finding out whether or
not we had attended the meetings. So these youths would report on who they had
seen, I for one was nominated that they had seen me, we saw P who was a senior,
who was the deputy head foreman , senior foreman, we saw P, we saw Q, we saw R,
they were just seated and some were at the dam fishing. I for one was at the
office during that time. Our names were listed down and we were labelled to be
MDC supporters. So when they came to take over the farms, we just heard of the
places where the farms were taken over. So these chairmen were crossing their
fingers for our farm to be acquired because they labelled us MDC supporters,
white men’s colleagues.
If we consider the
violations against their fellow farm workers, respondents report the following
perpetrators:
As expected the
pattern is largely similar to that of violations perpetrated against respondents
themselves. The rank order remains relatively stable. Considering perpetrators
of violations against their employers, the following responses are
given:
Again, the similarity
is striking and supports the thesis that farmers and farm workers were viewed by
the State as forming one constituency and treated as such. The similarity of
these three graphs encourages a view of the invasions as operating in a
non-random, systematic way, and thus as centrally organised and driven. These
patterns, when read in conjunction with the actual identities of the
perpetrators occurring in the patterns, provide further evidence of State
complicity and involvement in the series of human rights violations under the
guise of “Land Reform”.
Farm workers maintain
strong ties with their farms after eviction, and almost all are able to give
information on current occupants.
Do
you know the person who occupies the farm now?
Number
%
Yes
148
97%
No
4
3%
Grand Total
152
100%
Even though 82% of
the sample are no longer employed on the farm they are still very aware of the
identity of the current occupant. This is very significant, especially when one
considers the following question:
Was
this person involved in Jambanja?
Number
%
Yes
97
65%
No
52
35%
Grand Total
149
100%
If two thirds of the
current occupiers were themselves perpetrators of violent crimes, this has
severe consequences for the idea, contained in the September 16 2008 political
agreement between ZANU PF and MDC, that one can simply ignore the identity of
the current occupants of farms and move forward with no reference to the manner
in which those farms were occupied. This strong ZANU-PF network of violent farm
occupiers provides an excellent platform from which events on the farms can be
observed and controlled.
The
Police
Warranting a section
of their own, the police played a crucial role in the onslaught against farm
workers and farmers. In addition to the basic questions above about the police
as direct perpetrators of violations, respondents were also asked questions
about the willingness of the
police to carry out
their constitutional duty. It is here that it becomes apparent the police had
instructions from persons in Government to keep their distance from the crimes
committed on the farms.
Were the police ever called for
assistance?
Yes
77%
No
23%
Over three-quarters
of respondents called the police for assistance. However, less than half
reported that the police had been helpful on even one
occasion.
Were they helpful?
Yes
47%
No
53%
It is expected that
respondents would have a worse knowledge of the role of the police than their
employers as farm workers were generally not involved in contacting the police
or dealing directly with them. However, the data above shows that farm workers
were aware that, despite fairly frequent requests for police assistance, this
was only forthcoming less than half the time.
No of times police called
No of times police
helpful
Total
203
82
%
100
40
It is very
significant that the police were helpful only 40% of the time. It is this fact
that no doubt reduced the number of times violations were reported to the
police, as there was limited expectation of police response. However, when more
personal questions are asked of respondents about their own dealings with the
police, the picture steadily deteriorates.
Did
you ever report to the police?
Yes
46%
No
54%
Almost half the
respondents in our sample reported to the police, itself a severe indictment of
the level of human rights violations occurring on the farms, but only 22% were
assisted.
Were you assisted when you reported to the
police?
Yes
22%
No
78%
These first-hand
experiences are likely to be considerably more accurate than estimates of the
employer’s attempts to get police involvement. As time went by, only 37% of the
sample reported that the police continued to provide assistance of any form
whatsoever.
The police themselves
were under a considerable amount of internal pressure to obey the illegal
commands of their superiors. This meant that any show of professionalism or
nonpartisan law enforcement was heavily
reprimanded.
Did
you ever see police intimidated?
Yes
27%
No
73%
The facts that 27% of
the sample reported that they themselves witnessed (public) police intimidation
and that 20% of the sample said that helpful police were transferred to new
posts, suggest the kinds of internal pressure policemen were under to act
unconstitutionally, irresponsibly and illegally.
Were helpful police
transferred?
Yes
20%
No
80%
When asked what reasons the police gave for their refusal to react to dangerous and volatile situations, respondents gave the following answers:
It is well known from
the companion reports to the present one that the police often refused to
involve themselves in violent situations on the farms because, they would say,
it was a “political matter”. It is nonetheless interesting that they should have
been so candid about their reason for refusing to react. After all, it would
have been fairly credible for them to have claimed that they lacked the
resources, a claim the above chart shows they used quite infrequently. The vast
difference between the “political matter” excuse and the others, shows the
extent to which the hands of the ordinary policemen were tied by political
orders from high ranking officers in the ZRP. It is also to be noted that these
excuses for a failure to react were only given when the victims were farm
workers or farmers. When anything happened to a War Veteran or a member of the
Youth Militia, the police were very quick to investigate and charge the guilty
party.
This partisan law
enforcement is yet another demonstration of the State’s responsibility for the
violations committed during “Land Reform”. This can be demonstrated by the
number of farm worker respondents who were themselves arrested: 23%. If one out
of every four farm workers were arrested by the police, most usually because they approached the police to report political
violence, again the role of the police in hounding any opposition to ZANU PF
becomes clear. For example, a further question asked of farm workers was “Were
the police impartial when you were arrested?” which was answered “no” by 70% of
respondents.
Farm Worker 19
described police reaction when he was badly
assaulted:
After that the settlers took me to attend a meeting
at a place called A. They were just discussing the land issue at this meeting.
We were accused of supporting the whites at this meeting. They said “you are
still supporting Varungu, all the farm workers you are supporting Varungu. You
do not want us to take over the land so you are the reason why Varungu are not
vacating the farms so you are going to suffer for that.” So we were beaten up.
We were made to lie on the lawns and we were beaten up with some baton sticks.
They used my baton stick to beat me up, I had a baton stick since I was a guard,
they just took me to the meeting with the things that I had on me. So they used
my baton stick to beat me up. I was made to lie on my tummy. I was injured. I
called the police; the Member-in-Charge is the one who came on that day. From A
police station, his name was X. He arrived and he spoke to me, he asked me to
explain everything. I tried explaining to him but I was full of anger so I was
explaining to him with lots of bitterness. He advised me to calm down and speak
to him calmly. I explained to him everything that had happened. Yes, they were
able to arrest the people who had beaten me up on that day and they went with
them to A Police Station. There were three of them, the ones who really beat me
up. But the people who beat me up did not stay in police custody for several
days. I think they were released the following day, I heard that they were
released because they were based at A where they held their meetings. That was
their base. I heard that they had been released which meant that no meaningful
judgment had been passed to them because if they had been judged properly they
were not supposed to have been released the next day considering how much they
had beaten me up. Even if I had returned to the police station, there are times
when we used to call them when we were having problems but they were simply not
bothered. “Do what they want you to do”; they would advise us to do what the war
veterans wanted us to do. We all thought that the police were working together
with the war veterans, calling them to help with a case did not yield much
results.
Farm Worker 18
described how the police also feared the war veterans who had been given free
rein on the farms:
[War veteran] A used to upset the employees on a daily basis. He
used to beat up the employees every day. These cases were reported to the police
but they used to say that they could not help because they were matters that
were related to politics. They were officers from J. There was F and G. They
were actually afraid of the situation because A had become well known in the
area for moving around with a gun so he also used to intimidate the police
officers as well.
Farm Worker 2
reported on the activities of the police following a political
beating:
I got arrested. What happened is that I went to town
and I passed through ZANU-PF offices in A at A Hotel. When I was passing through
they called me, they said “[Farmer] X’s
employee may you please come here.” I didn’t know the reason why they were
calling me; they did not say why they were calling me. They just started beating
me up. It was some ZANU PF youths. I can remember Y; some of them who were the
leaders are now dead. There was Z; I have forgotten the other names.
So at the office I just thought that nothing was
going to happen to me since they knew me very well. Then they accused me of
supporting MDC and I told them that it is a party that is there. There were some
war veterans amongst them and one of them suggested that they leave me alone.
The war veterans got me into their car and they took me home at the farm to
search my house
and they took the MDC T-shirts that I had. They also
took some party books, the MDC manifesto and I just left them and they went with
the things. The matter was taken to the police but it just died a natural death.
They beat me up because I support MDC. They used whatever they wanted, some of
them beat me up with clubs, some of them hit my head with bricks. They beat me
up as they pleased until I sustained some injuries and was admitted to hospital.
I left the hospital where I wasn’t treated very well and I went to Harare to B
were I was assisted with medical treatment. I informed the police about the
assault, but they did not do anything about it. No one, not one of them was
arrested. I sometimes bump into [the perpetrators].
I just say to myself that it was their time, my turn will come soon. The police
would not give me a report, they refused. MDC took me to B, I went there and I
was assigned a doctor who treated me and I used to come for reviews. I was badly
injured when I was beaten up so my blood pressure went up so I was told to visit
the doctor every month. So I used to come and have my blood pressure checked so
the doctor decided to give me a referral letter so that I could be treated from
here. So it was becoming difficult for me to keep on coming here, the bus fare
was becoming too expensive for me because the fares kept on going up. What I do
is that if I bump into a doctor that I know I ask for the BP tablets but if I
don’t I can even go for two months without any tablets. My wife was not injured,
she was also beaten but they did not injure her. I am the one who was injured to
the extent that I had to go to hospital. My health is not good. There is a time
when I feel some pain or suffer from insomnia. I sometimes think that all this
is because of the brutal beatings that I went through; there are some diseases
that just emanate without you knowing where they will be coming from. It’s just
that sometimes you don’t know where some of these things come from. The war
veterans, the youths and the police are working in cahoots because they are at
the same camp right now. There is nowhere that you can report any assaults that
are linked to politics. The problem is that if ZANU PF members commit crimes
they are left alone and they are not arrested but if MDC members commit crimes
they get arrested and get jailed. That is what the problem is right
now.
Farm Worker 23 is
still perplexed by the police refusal to react after his
assault:
Up to now I don’t understand the treatment that I got
from the police. I think they knew the perpetrators very well. They asked me
what I wanted and I showed them the letter (they even asked me if I was the one
who had been beaten and I confirmed.) They read it and told me to come back the
following day. I said I would and the following day I came back but they said
they had lost the letter. I persisted until they asked me the name of the
officer who took the letter. I informed them that the officer had refused to
give his name. So in the end that letter was never found but still I managed to
lodge a report that I had been assaulted and that I lost $180.00 in the ensuing
melee. Eventually I did not pursue the case further because I clearly saw that
it was a waste of time. I still keep some documents from the hospital
though.
Statutory Instrument 6 of
2002
In 2002, Statutory
Instrument 6 [S.I.6/02] set out the regulations in terms of which farmers
whose land had been acquired by the Government should pay out their workers for
being made redundant. These financial packages went considerably beyond the
standard retrenchment regulations and were instigated by Government for two
reasons.
Firstly, at the time
of instituting the severance packages in 2002, the State still wished to appear
publicly benevolent towards the farm workers it was at the same time having
beaten and tortured. Secondly, by buying temporary support from farm workers,
the State hoped to drive a wedge between workers and employer and drive the
employer from the property.
This would leave the
farm open to a new occupier from within the ZANU PF patronage structures, who
would be in a strong position to quash any further opposition politics. Most
farmers paid the S.I.6/02
packages, which
represented large sums of money and absorbed a vast proportion of the farmer’s
liquid assets. However, some farmers argued that they would pay their workers
compensation as and when they themselves received compensation from the
Government for the loss of their farms, for which, of course, they are still
waiting.
In our sample, 67% of respondents reported having received their S.I.6/02 packages, and of those who received it, 93% say they received the entire sum.
In the majority of
cases where packages were not paid, the farmer was summarily evicted. Some
workers did not qualify for these packages because they were temporary or casual
employees. In some cases the farmer left voluntarily without paying the
packages, or refused to pay them. Farmers themselves are still awaiting
compensation from the Government for their losses.
Perhaps surprisingly, when asked who informed the respondents about the S.I.6/02 package the most frequent response was the farmer himself, who was responsible for informing one out of two workers about this package. This does not entirely fit in with the idea of the racist farmer determined to avoid any social responsibilities towards his employees. Indeed, the farmer outperformed GAPWUZ itself in this regard.
It is also
significant that after receiving the package, almost half of respondents left
the farm. This probably represents a mixture of a small portion of voluntary
displacements and a larger portion of forced evictions. At any rate, large
numbers of people left the farms, which is always significant when considering
the purported aim of “Land Reform” as being
returning
land to the people
and people to the land.
Did
you continue to live on the farm after receiving the
package?
No
47%
Yes
53%
In some cases, farm
workers were forced to give a portion of their package to the invading War
Veterans and Youth Militia who had violently coerced the farmer into paying out
the package. Farmers resisted this, often because they felt that paying out the
S.I.6/02 package indicated a willingness to leave the farm,
which would be further exploited by the invaders. One in five farm workers
reported that some portion of their S.I.6/02
package was
extorted from them.
Were you extorted?
No
80%
Yes
20%
Eviction
The next step for
most farms was that the farmer would be illegally evicted, often at the direct
instruction of the police, who threatened jail sentences for farmers who refused
to leave. These illegal orders from the police are further examples of their
involvement, direct and indirect, in the assault on farmers and
workers.
Once the farmer was
evicted, however, the lives of the workers steadily deteriorated. Firstly, the
majority of former farm workers left the farms, either voluntarily or
involuntarily.
Are
you still living on the farm?
Number
%
Yes
55
34%
No
108
66%
Grand Total
163
100%
With only one worker
in three from our sample still living on the farms, the question arises as to
the whereabouts of the other two-thirds. Later in the survey design, when we
added in the question on whether or not this displacement from the farm was
voluntary, we got the following responses:
Were you evicted from the farm?
Number
%
Yes
37
71%
No
15
29%
Grand Total
52
100%
Farm Worker 13 was
evicted explicitly because of his political
affiliation:
We were evicted from the farm by some ZANU PF youths
and war veterans because they are accusing us of being members of the MDC. I
don’t know where they got that from because when one is working it doesn’t
matter if they are a member of the MDC or a member of ZANU PF. One will be
working in order to earn a living, in order to be able to send their kids to
school.
The large proportion
of farm workers evicted summarily is entirely consistent with other evidence of
the lack of humanity of the perpetrators of these
violations.
If
you were evicted did you get given notice?
Number
%
No
34
92%
Yes
3
8%
Grand Total
37
100%
Farm Worker 12,
luckier than many, was evicted with seven days
notice:
The settlers addressed a meeting and told the people
that the person that they used to work for was no longer there so it was only
proper for us to vacate the farm since there was no more place for us and since
we didn’t have land. They said that even if we go to the Ministry of Lands we
would be told that they don’t know us because we were not allocated land and our
employer was no longer there. They told us that they could no longer keep us at
the farm since they didn’t have space for us. They advised us that it was best
if we packed our belongings and vacated the farm. I left the farm before the
farmer did because I just realized that there was a possibility that violence
could erupt or that people would beat each other up and injure themselves over
petty issues and I thought that it was best that I vacate the farm. That is the
reason why I left, we had been given seven days notice in which to vacate the
farm. I managed to move my belongings because I was given a lorry by Murungu to
help me move my belongings. So those who were going in the same direction were
given a lorry to move their belongings and each one was dropped off at their
final destination.
Because 92% of those
evicted had not been given notice, it is hardly surprising that they should have
experienced difficulty in finding even a temporary place to
stay.
Did
you have anywhere to go after your eviction?
Number
%
No
33
80%
Yes
8
20%
Grand Total
41
100%
Farm Worker 14
recorded another instance of summary eviction, where he and his family were
abandoned on the roadside:
I was evicted from the farm at night. I was claiming
my money. I had worked for [the settler] for
three months without being remunerated and then I started demanding my money and
then they decided that I was too clever and I was a bad influence on the rest of
the employees. They didn’t like clever people. We realized that the situation
was getting out of hand when we went for three months without remuneration and
then we confronted them and we started having arguments with them so that they
could pay us the money that we had already worked for. We used to water the
wheat for them and the onions that they had raided from Murungu. They got some
yields but they wanted to pay our salaries at a later date when the money would
not have any purchasing power anymore. We could not refer our situation to the
trade unions at that time because we were just evicted without notice. We were
just dropped at the turn off, at that junction, which is where we were dropped
with our property. It was during the rainy season and you could see for yourself
that it was better to plan other things than pursue that issue because if the
Government and the police knew that such things were happening and were not
doing anything about it, how could you pursue it on your own? I spent it must
have been two days on the roadside. I lost my drums and my new 20 litre
containers that I lost at the farm. I was affected by the eviction because if
one is threatened, you as the parent and the kids too will always remember such
incidents because such incidents will always be vivid in your brain, such things
will never fade from your memory. Something that is in your memory can last for
even 50 years because you will have been
disturbed.
Farm Worker 8
described the summary evictions of the entire labour forces of two neighbouring
farms:
The workers were actually surprised when they were
told that it was now the end and the war vets did not want to see them in the
compound anymore because they were on Murungu’s side. The war vets turned
against the workers at that very moment and all the promises that the workers
were going to be given land faded at that very moment. We did not even know
where to go since we did not even have some where to go. We were now in trouble
since we did not have any where to go. We remained in our houses in the compound
hoping that the settlers were going to take pity on us so that we could have
ample time to plan on where we were going to go. They then came and forcefully
removed the workers from the compound houses, using Jambanja and they were
checking the houses. They checked house to house and they asked us to move our
belongings out of the houses. We moved our belongings out of the houses and the
youths were instructed to assist us to ferry our belongings to the main road.
There was a main road close to the farm. They also went to the next farm and
they did the same thing until they had finished evicting all the farm workers
from the houses. All the farm workers were all now gathered at the main road.
The war vets said to us “you have been given money so you can hire motor
vehicles and go where ever you want to go as long as you are not at the farm for
we never want to see you at the farm anymore , save for A whom we have given
land and B. These are the only workers that we want to see, as for the rest
please leave.” So we were gathered at the road with the women and children. It
was during the school term such we had to temporarily stop the children from
going to school. The school children had to stop going to school. For us to move
from there.... I personally spent five days by that road side because I was one
person who was used to the farm life so. . . It was during the cold season, just
after August. It will not be hot yet in August. It was still cold. So I spent
five days on the road side. We lit a fire and we would cook some food that we
had brought from the compound. We cooked and ate by the road side. Some who had
their belongings looked for scotch carts. There were some who had rural homes
nearby, they looked for scotch carts to hire and their belongings were ferried
by the scotch carts and they paid high hiring fees. This was because these
people who were hiring their scotch carts out knew that the farm workers had
been given some money so they were charging as they pleased and we had no option
since we wanted our belongings to be moved to wherever we were going. That is
how we moved. I didn’t even know where to start from. It just crossed my mind
that I had to get into the reserves which were nearby. I then got into the
nearby reserves and I spoke to the headman of that area. I explained the
situation to him and he said that it was not a problem at all since there were
some vacant places in the area. He said that I could get two acres were I could
stay and farm but I had to pay some money. During those days the amount of money
was quite a lot. I paid $5 000.00 for the two acres. Paying was not a problem
since I had been paid my terminal benefits the S.I.6 pack. I paid the $5 000 and
I was given a place to stay and I paid the money. Plus I had asked for a plastic
from Murungu and he gave me and I used that plastic for
shelter.
It has been stated
elsewhere in this report, but it is worth remembering, that the large proportion
of farm workers of foreign extraction had no traditional rural home to go to. A
small percentage of farm workers are still working on the
farm:
Are
you employed there?
Number
%
No
105
82%
Yes
23
18%
Grand Total
128
100%
With only 18% of the
sample reporting that they are still working on the farm, it is evident that the
“Land Reform” programme has had deleterious effects on the employment of farm
workers. With a working population of some 350,000 permanent agricultural
workers in Zimbabwe, these results, if replicated on a larger scale, would
reveal a large number of displaced workers.
Let us remember too,
that farm workers were not beneficiaries of the “Land Reform”. If we consider
the position of farm workers with regard to the allocation of A1 settler plots,
the following results are obtained:
Are
there any workers who got plots?
Number
%
Yes
8
11%
No
66
89%
Grand Total
74
100%
It should immediately
be noted that the above table does not refer to the percentage of farm workers
who were given land; rather it refers to the percentage of respondents saying
that any workers at all were given even a single plot on
their farms. This is an important distinction. In effect it says that 9 out of
10 farm workers will tell you that none of the 150 odd employees on their farm
was allocated any land at all. 1 out of 10 says at least one person from the
farm was allocated land, but our figures do not allow us to calculate the exact
number. GAPWUZ statistics show that less than 1% of farm workers were allocated
land, so Farm Worker 15’s depiction of 0% of farm workers being allocated land
is not bitter hyperbole.
Farm Worker 15
described his resentment at not being allocated
land:
What I would like you to know is that yes, the farms
were taken from the whites; if the resettlement programme was meant to benefit
everyone I am sure everyone would have been given the land. How come the farm
workers were not given land? But I am also black and it was said that the land
was to be given to their rightful owners. My query is that how come the farm
workers were not given land? Especially us. I told you my job title, we are the
ones who had a 0% chance of getting land because we were said to be close to
Murungu and they said that we knew everything that he did. We were suspected to
be the biggest sell-outs.
Farm Worker 8
described the small number of workers allocated
plots:
Two out of the 350 employees were apportioned pieces
of land. There was one worker called A. He got a piece of land because he was on
the settlers’ side. Such that he used to attend all the meetings, he ingratiated
himself with them so that he could get land. That is what
happened.
Demographic changes caused by
“Land Reform”
As far as demographic changes are concerned, farm workers reported living with an average of 2.85 family members now, as opposed to 4.31 prior to “Land Reform”. This figure alone demonstrates the destruction of the communities and the death and dispersion of numerous farm workers. Of these 2.85 family members, an average of 0.1 are currently working on the farm, as opposed to the average of 1.4 family members working on the farm recorded before “Land Reform”. If one considers the number of children attending school on the farm, this figure has dropped from 40% to 19%.
Finally, the large
reduction in fellow farm workers living on the farms demonstrates once again the
fragmentation and destruction of the community, suggested here as the single
most important goal of “Land Reform”.
Farm Worker 16
described her acute distress following the enforced break-up of her
family:
Things have changed for me because being comfortable
means staying with all your children, and I do not stay with them now. If you
stayed with them, for example, you would know what they would have eaten when
they go to school. I sometimes cry when I think that I would have been staying
with all my children had my husband not passed away. I am not happy. I would
have wanted to stay with my children seeing them going to school. The other one
stays in X, maybe my daughter-in-law ill-treats him by beating him or not giving
him food. My other child goes to school in Y with his father’s young brother.
The one who stays in X is better off, I can see that the one who stays in Y is
not comfortable. He does not even have clothes to wear. I would have been
staying with all my children had I been at the farm. Or if I had my own house in
Z I would look for ideas on how to survive whilst I am at my own house. I would
have been hoarding items to sell and sell them at the market outside. My
children would be selling and they would be surviving. I can say that I am
comfortable but I am not, because my children are not comfortable. If my
children were comfortable then I would say I am comfortable, even if I suffer or
fall sick, whilst my children are well fed I would say that I am comfortable.
Right now I am comfortable, I do not say that I am not comfortable because I am
well looked after. They buy blankets, this and that everything they buy for me.
I am given clothes but my children do not have clothes. My salary is not enough
to even buy a pair of shoes. I am not happy. My children’s fees are paid for, he
is given bus fare from here to Kariba, he is given school fees but the problem
is where to stay. I used to stay with my children when I was at the farm. I used
to say “you go and dig out some sweet potatoes, you go and borrow bread from the
shop.” It doesn’t matter that I do not have much but I could see to it that my
children are surviving. But right now I am not happy about having my children
being looked after by someone else. I used to think that my Murungu was going to
remember me and buy me a house for me to stay with my children but it’s not
happening like that. I am not asking him, you cannot keep asking so I just keep
quiet. He promised that he was going to look after me until my husband dies.
Having your children being looked after by someone is not easy, that is when you
hear that someone has died of stress.
Farm Worker 17
expressed regret at the change in circumstances caused by “Land
Reform”:
What I would like to say is that everyone who was
left by Varungu is regretting and thinks of the life that they used to lead with
Varungu, that includes me and my family, everyone. My wish is that if only
things can return back to normal, to what they were like in the past. I am not
saying that the whites should necessarily come back but I wish I could have the
lifestyle that I used to lead in the past. The lump that I will always have in
my throat is that A and B - C’s kids – died because they were moved from where
they were staying and were now staying in an area with cold hearts. My friend D
was well looked after at the farm, he did not have relatives but we buried a lot
of people who did not have relatives and they were well looked after at the
farm. Quite a number of people have died as a result of the land grabs, because
I remember some elderly gentleman who died at E; he used to work at E. He was a
worker who was well known to Murungu because he used to work in the cattle
paddocks most of the times. He died when we had left the farm and I am told that
the settlers refused to give him a place where he could be buried and he ended
up being buried at the next farm. I would like to say thank you to Murungu
because he has shown that he still cares for me, they still remember me, and I
also still remember them.
Coping
strategy
It is interesting to find out what farm workers did after the farmer had been evicted.
The table above
highlights the destruction of the formal economy in Zimbabwe. With the greatest
proportion of workers coping after eviction by “buying and selling”, we see how
the informal economy began to thrive. It is very interesting too that so few
workers should migrate to the rural areas, with only 9% saying that they had
chosen this strategy. This backs up other assessments that very few farm workers
had a rural home.
It is also
interesting that 17% stated that they worked for the new farmer. GAPWUZ
statistics have demonstrated the enormous difference in wages earned by workers
under the old employers and the wages paid by the new
farmers.
Finally, it is
significant that 23% of workers stated that they had moved to town after their
eviction. This would be more comforting were it not for another question asked
of these same workers. 41 respondents out 159, or 26%, said that they were
affected by Operation Murambatsvina
(or officially in
English “Operation Clean Up”, euphemistically adapted from the literal
translation “Operation Clear the Filth”). Operation Murambatsvina
was a 2005 attack
on the poor and vulnerable within municipalities through invoking colonial-era
legislation to bulldoze informal (and some formal) settlements and destroy
informal traders. Those farm workers who moved to town would have been forced
into the areas targeted by Operation
Murambatsvina and
had further property destroyed.
Damages incurred as a result of
“Land Reform”
In order to ascertain
the degree of losses sustained by commercial farm workers as a result of “Land
Reform”, two questions were asked: ‘Did you have the amenity before “Land
Reform”?’ and ‘Do you have the amenity now?’ This exercise gave the following
results:
In this text we will not repeat all the details of the above, but it is nonetheless recommended that the table is considered carefully. It is evident that the losses have been of vast proportions for farm workers. Much has been made, and rightly so, of the huge financial losses sustained by commercial farmers. However, there has been a shameful lack of public interest in the real and quantifiable losses sustained by these same farmers’ employees, let alone in the no less real, but unquantifiable, losses such as the loss of cultural rights regarding appeasing ancestral spirits. Living conditions today, quite apart from the fact that the workers are now unemployed and thus have no steady income, are much worse than before.
Everything is worse,
and by an average decrease of 58%. Let us consider a few of the major changes.
The loss of livestock is reported by 83% of respondents, and crops by 78%.
Taking into account the high loss of other incomes (82%) and the loss of
subsidised rations (68%), it is scarcely surprising that the farm workers, like
the rest of the country, are now unable to feed themselves adequately. Medical
care has dropped by 74%, piped water by 61%, access to a clinic by 52% and
toilets by 42%. Such conditions are very likely to have contributed to the
severe cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe in 2008/2009. Perhaps most significant,
however, is the loss of a home (61%) and wages (66%). These losses are common to
both farmers and farm workers, and are deeply felt by respondents. The
destruction of one’s livelihood and one’s home is devastating, both physically
and psychologically, and when done with intent, as here, provide ample evidence
of the State’s callous disregard for the lot of many of its
citizens.
It should be noted
that farm workers frequently compare the current conditions on the farms to the
considerably better conditions that they lived in prior to “Land Reform”. This
should not be taken to imply that the authors of this report view farm workers
as formerly living in some sort of prelapsarian bliss. On the contrary, it is
clear that farm workers received the lowest wages of any group in the country
and were often exploited. For example, Timothy Neill, citing a study by
Kanyenze, discusses in a 2004 report by the Zimbabwe Community Development Trust
how the Economic Structural Adjustment Program (ESAP) benefited employers but
not workers in the 1990s.
Real
average earnings collapsed but productivity levels remained high. During ESAP
productivity levels doubled from those of the both the pre- and
post-Independence periods, yet the farm workers were still paid poor wages.
Average real earnings for the period 1991 – 1997 were $30.92 (based on 1980 prices. For indices,
1980=100) but productivity averaged $189.27
over the same period. That is six times average real earnings. (Kanyenze,
2001).
A FCTZ report
entitled ‘The Situation of Commercial Farm Workers after Land Reform in
Zimbabwe’ reviews the post-Independence academic literature on the conditions of
farm workers up until 2000:
The literature on farm workers post-Independence picked up the themes explored during the colonial era. Much of it focused on low wages, poor housing and amenities, and surviving vestiges of quasifeudal and paternalistic relationships between landowners and farm workers. There was a strong element of advocacy in this literature (Amanor-Wilks, 1995; Balleis The Situation of Commercial Farm Workers after Land Reform in Zimbabwe 24 and Mugwetsi,1994; FCTZ, 2001; Tandon, 2001). It urged an improvement of the social and wage conditions of this ‘forgotten’ and ‘invisible’ stratum of the working class. Farm workers were seen as lagging behind other social sectors, and as being denied participation in full political and economic life. There was, however, an acknowledgement that there had been some changes in their living conditions, although these were, on the whole, Inadequate (Amanor-Wilks, 1995). There was strong advocacy for the empowerment of farm workers through better working conditions, income and food security, and access to health, education and security of tenure (Gavi and Banda, 2001). Recommendations were made for more positive government policy on housing and sanitation, and land rights for farm workers (Magaramombe, 2001). This literature reflected the growing role of NGOs in programmes to assist and empower the farm worker community in the 1990s.
So it should be
remembered that the living and working conditions of the farm workers in the
late 1990’s were in urgent need of improvement. However, this makes it all the
more striking that the workers in the following extracts look back to the time
before “Land Reform” so nostalgically. It further underscores the severity of
the circumstances in which farm workers
now find themselves.
In addition, it should be remarked that the more socially conscious farmers were
often more likely to be politically active and thus associated with the MDC.
This meant that, in practice, farmers whose workers were better paid and lived
in better conditions were often the target of more severe
violations.
Farm Worker 11
described the amenities on the farm prior to “Land Reform” and
eviction:
We were comfortable on the farm. We did not have too
many problems, the farm owner used to help so much especially with issues
pertaining to education, in sickness he used to help and also on other various
issues. There were cases where he did not ask to be paid back loans but he would
require to be paid back in cases like lobola loans, or if you wanted to acquire
some personal items. But if it was about other things concerning the farm he did
not make you pay back, especially education fees and during times of sickness
and also if he was satisfied with your hospital cards, he did not make you pay
back. He would just say the farm would cater for it. We noticed that the farm
owner was a well up person when he built a school for us, a preschool and he
also installed a television and a radio in the pre-school. The television was
such that those who wanted to watch television after work would go watch it for
free because it belonged to the farm; it was for the whole compound. During the
holidays he could also buy us some items and give us free of charge after we had
pleased him with what he would have asked us to do. After that, just before say
at the beginning of the tobacco sowing season, he could give us a free day where
he would hold a party for us and then we continued with our work thereafter.
After executing our duties and after he sold his produce he would also give us
some bonus. He would give not just staff but everyone including the general
labourers. He also used to do an inspection in the compounds every six months.
The winners would be awarded with pots and some other items. He would check for
the most well kept garden, a well looked after house and the most hygienic
house. The health worker would get into the compound advising us on what to do.
Prizes would be given to the best five well kept houses. From this we observed
that he was an understanding and very helpful person. If you had some relatives
like some foreigners that were amongst us, some had some very old mothers and
some very old fathers and if they had nowhere to stay he would make them stay at
some place which we used to call “X” where he had built some brick houses, there
was no electricity but running water was available where these elderly people
resided. And sometimes if he was happy with his sales he would buy some overalls
and work suits to give to these elderly people. These elderly people would in
return help by sometimes clearing up the roads and picking up some dirt. This is
how he used to help us.
Farm Worker 18
described the services that used to exist on the farm but which are no longer
available:
We used to get a lot of things from Murungu at the
farm. He used to give us chickens for free, he used to assist with school fees,
he used to provide us with free transport to take us to the hospital in the
event that we fell sick, he also used to give us money to attend funerals and he
also used to pay us good salaries. I personally used to stay in a three-roomed
brick house.
Farm Worker 16
received help transporting the body of her dead
husband:
What Murungu did for me, he ferried my husband to the
rural area because a lot of people are unable to do that, but I managed to do
that through Murungu. Murungu asked me if I wanted my husband to be buried at
the farm and deny him the opportunity to be grieved by his relatives and I said
no to that. Because my husband’s sickness emanated from the farm and there was
no way I wanted him to be buried at the farm, it was better for us to bury him
in the rural areas. So Murungu said that he was going to do as I wanted. I am
very grateful that God intervened and Murungu respected my
wishes.
Farm Worker 7
described life before eviction:
My life was good before the farm was taken over. I
was able to educate my children and I could clothe my family, I was able to feed
my family well and we used to lead a good life. I was paid my salary at the end
of every month, I was given help if my child got injured and had to be taken to
the hospital, I would tell Murungu about it and he would quickly organize that I
get assistance. I would be given a motor vehicle to take my child to hospital. I
used to be assisted in all this plus if I ran short of money I was able to
borrow to enable my child to go to school. Murungu did not give us rations but
we led a good life.
Farm Worker 11
described the current state of the farm:
There is no progress being made, the farm has
deteriorated such that you will not believe that it is the same farm that won
the “tobacco grower of the year”. We were the runners up and we won the grower
of the year and [the farmer] was
there but now you will not believe that it is the same farm that won the grower
of the year in the whole of Zimbabwe. The farm has now been turned into a
junkyard, some of the tractors left by the white man were burnt up in the
forest; they did not attend to the tractors that had breakdowns. There are no
more irrigation pipes as some were used as pots and buckets. Diesel generators
were modified to be tractors and they were destroyed just like that. They sold
some of the roofing that belonged to unoccupied houses. You will feel pity if
you go to the farm as it is now a junk yard.
Farm Worker 19
describes the situation on the farm prior to “Land
Reform”:
Briefly I would say that life at the farm was good
because we used to lead comfortable lifestyles. Our school children used to go
to school without any problems with the assistance of this Murungu. We were
assisted with school fees. They used to grow food. They used to grow different
crops, so we were all fed in terms of our welfare. We used to eat different food
stuffs. There was a big orchard such that we used to even eat fruits. We were
given this for free. He used to grade the fruits and he would give his employees
the remainder of the fruits for free. There were some apples, peaches, plums and
sweet potatoes. We used to grow a lot of sweet potatoes. So in terms of our
health and in terms of food we used to eat good food and there was plenty of it.
He also used to slaughter a beast so that we could get some meat. The houses
were beautiful. They were brick houses with electricity. We used to drink clean
tapped water. We were also given some gardens where we could cultivate on our
own, such that everything was very good. Problems would come up here and there
but our lifestyles were better than our way of life
now.
As we continued with the survey it became apparent that quantifying the actual property losses sustained by farm workers is crucial to understanding their circumstances.
This table presents
two things. Firstly, under average it presents the average percentage of
respondents in our sample reporting the loss of the said item of property during
the period of “Land Reform”. Typically, these losses occurred as a result of
summary eviction, or from the looting and destruction of their homesteads as a
result of their failure to adequately support ZANU PF. The second finding, based
on a highly conservative estimate of the value of the property lost, is the
total and average monetary loss to the respondents in US$. Note here that ‘n’
for this question is small, between 18 and 20 people. It is immediately clear
that actual physical property losses are very high, and it is expected that the
final report on this project will demonstrate massive financial losses. These
losses were sustained as a direct result of “Land Reform” and the Government of
Zimbabwe is thus liable for them.
Farm Worker 18
described some of the property lost as a result of being summarily
evicted:
I didn’t like what war veteran X did and I am still
not happy because I lost a lot of things. I lost my wardrobe and my clothes that
disappeared and I had to start from scratch. So it’s something that upset me
because I never anticipated that. We lost quite a number of things because some
of the things remained behind in the house because we were evicted without
notice. They wanted us to vacate the place with immediate effect so I didn’t
manage to take my belongings when I was evicted. Because they asked us to vacate
the farm and go where our Murungu had gone because they didn’t want to see
Murungu’s “people” at the farm. That was because we had refused to work for
X.
Farm Workers 20 and
21, who are a married couple, described their loss of property and the loss of
property of their relative who was assaulted on their
behalf.
Wife: They came to attack us and we fled our houses but we
could not take our belongings with us because we were fleeing. We fled and we
hid somewhere. Murungu was not there on that day, he had gone to his other ranch
which was in Z. So this happened in his absence. So they demolished my house and
my husband’s uncle’s house was also demolished. His name is A. After demolishing
the house they took some food and utensils, they took the nice things and then
destroyed some. They took some pots and they left some behind. I think they left
two pots in my uncle’s house. They took some dishes and they destroyed some,
they cut up some containers, they destroyed some tables and they took some
blankets and some duvets and cassettes, they took some of our clothes and some
paraffin lights too.
Husband: They knew that it would prompt Murungu to leave if
they destroyed some individuals. So their intention was to destroy everything
that belonged to me in the event that they failed to find me because there was
no time for us to pack all our belongings and flee with them. We just managed to
flee empty-handed. We fled with our lives and we left our belongings and they
got an opportunity to destroy them. Our doors were locked. They did not find us
and they took some of our belongings and destroyed some. They had warned us.
They warned us to flee or else they were going to kill us. They said “especially
you who is close to Murungu”. Meaning me, Farm Worker 20. They said “we are much
more interested in you because you are close to Murungu. You know all the
information regarding this farm. If we get hold of you in your house you will
die” so I fled with my family. They would have done this to me because when they
did not find me they went to my uncle’s house. My uncle was there and they beat
him up thoroughly. He was beaten up by some youths who were holding some clubs
and several other weapons. We were not there to witness it but we are told that
he was rescued by some leader who told the youth to stop beating him up because
he had had enough. And they said that they wanted to go with him to finish him
off.
Farm Worker 4
described property he lost when he left the farm:
I now feared that the settlers could hurt me. During
those days I used to lock my house from outside and then I would get in through
the window so that it would appear as if I wasn’t there.
[The farmer] then asked me to go with the lorry to collect my
belongings. The settlers were waiting for me when I went to take my belongings
and they asked me where I was heading. I told them that I was going to my rural
home; I did not tell them that I was going to Murungu.
[The farmer] had given me some wheelbarrows earlier and the
settlers asked me to leave them behind and I told them that I had been given
these by [the
farmer]. They told me that they wanted
[the farmer] himself to tell them that he had given these
wheelbarrows to me. So my wheelbarrows and my other belongings remained behind.
I was in fear when I was packing up such that I lost some of my belongings, some
of them were stolen because I discovered them missing on arrival at Harare. I
have no idea who took them. I lost umbrellas, a suitcase packed with my mother’s
clothes and two blankets. I used to stay with my
mother.
Farm Worker 10
described the disruption and loss to her life caused by
eviction:
Eventually my husband had to pack and go after
[war veteran] X had come around 2 o’clock armed with two knives,
one big and one small, and a brick that he used to smash the door, prompting my
husband to wake up. I implored my husband not to come out but he said he had no
choice; better they kill him than for them to throw that brick and kill the
innocent children. So he gathered courage and came out and the rest of us
including the children just followed. X had dropped the brick but he was still
wielding the machete. The children pleaded with my husband and I to run for our
lives and we said it was better to die than to run and leave them. So X grabbed
the keys and ordered us to leave there and then and he locked the doors and
chased us away. There was him and his brother-in-law at the forefront and some
others who were just lurking in the dark. I couldn’t make out their faces
because there was no moonlight. So he chased us away and we spent the whole
night standing under trees in the gum plantation. They then had a free-for-all
in the house, leaving us completely nothing. Since that day I only have two
skirts; this one that I am wearing and the one that’s left at home. The
following morning we were told to pack and go but there was no longer anything
to pack since everything had been looted so my husband and I we just left
empty-handed. My child had long stopped going to school because they would
waylay him and threaten him with death if he dared pass. We were offered a lift
by a certain white man and he left us at another farm. Since then my child only
managed to resume school this year in June.
Compensation and
Recommendations
This study then
proceeded to ask how respondents wished to be compensated for the losses they
had suffered.
The above table is
revealing. Whilst more than half of respondents wished for land as a method of
compensation, it is interesting that this was chosen by fewer respondents than
the other options. The most popular method of compensation, when measured by
percentage, was Housing, though this was from a sample of only 20 respondents.
It is very interesting that Social Amenities should be the most popular amongst
the larger sample. This suggests once again that providing schools, clinics and
adequate living conditions might be viewed by farm workers as a viable method of
compensation. The provision of jobs, not surprisingly considering the vast
unemployment caused by “Land Reform”, is also a popular method of
compensation.
Farm Worker 13 would
like to see adequate housing being restored as part of any
compensation:
My major request is that I wish we can find somewhere
to house our families because they are suffering. Right now our kids are not
going to school because we were evicted from the farm. If you decide to move
your family to someone’s house and if they found out that the person that they
evicted is being housed by someone, they will come and evict or beat up the
person who will be housing you. I would actually ululate if the farms were to be
given back to the whites because farm workers are suffering in the farms right
now. People are just being strong because there is nothing that they can do.
There is no day that passes by without a farm worker being scolded or being
criticized. We are actually upset about it as farm workers. If you get into the
farms and ask all the farm workers they will tell you that they are not happy
with the way that they are living in the farms right
now.
Farm Worker 22 wished
for a piece of land as compensation:
I would like a piece of land, yes, but not to evict
Murungu from his farm but just a piece for me to grow food for my kids. But not
for me to evict Murungu from the farm for me to take over, I would not be able
to farm on Murungu’s farm. I don’t have anything in terms of inputs , I would
just want a piece of land for me to grow maize and sweet potatoes for my kids
but not for me to evict Murungu from his farm for me to take over , I will not
be able to manage.
In the national
debate over the future of Zimbabwe’s once productive farms and the aftermath of
violence and political oppression, there has not yet been any official attempt
to ascertain the views of the farm workers, the greatest victims of this period
in our recent history, as to how this matter should be resolved. This project is
in the process of doing exactly this, and our preliminary results are as
follows:
Recommendations
Sum
N
Ave
Continue as is
2 20 10%
Granting Amnesty to perpetrators
3 20 15%
Forming Co-operatives
7 20 35%
Training in other
jobs
31 56 55%
Start land redistribution afresh
45 76 59%
Legal proceedings against
perpetrators 15 20 75%
Returning to the status quo ante
2000
57
76
75%
The least popular
option in the set choices given to farm workers is to “continue as is”, with
only 2 of the 20 respondents believing this represented a viable way forward.
Also very unpopular, according to farm workers, is the grant of official amnesty
to perpetrators of violations. This has significant implications for the setting
up of any Truth and Justice Commission, where it would appear that only a
minority of victims wish their attackers to be granted immunity. In fact, 75% of
this (small) sample wish for the perpetrators of violations to be
prosecuted.
Many (59%) believed
that land redistribution should begin afresh or, in the terms of this report,
that “Land Reform” should be replaced by genuine Land Reform. This view is
important. Finally, it comes as no surprise to the authors of this report that
of 76 farm worker respondents, no fewer than 57 – or 75% – recommended that the
nation’s agricultural land return to the status quo ante 2000. This is a clear
indictment of “Land Reform” by farm workers who should surely have been in the
forefront of the beneficiaries of any genuine Land Reform
programme.
Farm Worker 16
suggested that unproductive settlers be evicted and farmers be
reinstated:
About the land issue, like at our farm, it is better
for the settlers to be evicted because they are not utilizing the land, they are
growing weeds. They are growing weeds, there is no farming going on. Some new
farmers are utilizing the farms but some are not, they should drive out those
who are not utilizing the farms and give them back to their owners. They should
give the land to those who want to stay with Varungu, it should be up to them to
agree to stay with Varungu and those who do not want should not be given
land.
Farm Worker 7 wished
for peace and certainty in the future:
I would like Murungu to come back because these
issues of trauma were not there during Varungu’s time. You just knew that you
would go to work and get paid at the end of the month and if you did not perform
well you would deal with the foreman and be sent back
home.
In closing, it seems
apt to end with the words of Farm Worker 19. Farm Worker 19 reflected on the
traumatic effects of the “Land Reform” programme:
The land acquisition programme traumatized us a great deal because of the way it was carried out. Because a lot of people were traumatized most of them do not have anywhere to stay to date, they do not have enough food and clothing. Murungu used to help us in a lot of aspects. So right now a lot of people are suffering, you would really appreciate that people are suffering a great deal if you could talk to the rest of the people on the farms. Those like me who are in Harare are far much better because Varungu are helping us here and there. If you see some of the whites that we used to work with you can actually see that they are traumatized. They are still traumatized so I would say that the land acquisition programme was very wrong. -- ZimOnline
http://www.mg.co.za
JASON MOYO - Nov 13 2009
06:00
With days to go before the expiry of the Southern African
Development
Community's 15-day deadline for Zimbabwe's coalition partners to
end their
feuding, a new battlefront opened this week in the country's
courts and
Parliament.
The terrorism trial of Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) treasurer Roy
Bennett has thrown up new evidence of the
security forces' reliance on
torture and enabled the opposition to present
the attorney general, Johannes
Tomana, as biased and unfit for
office.
In Parliament the MDC introduced Bills that would bring sweeping
reforms to
the central bank and the police force, setting the stage for
another bitter
battle with Zanu-PF.
In the Bennett trial, key state
witness Peter Hitschmann, a convicted arms
dealer, claimed in an affidavit
that he was tortured into giving evidence
implicating Bennett in a
conspiracy to acquire arms to attack President
Robert Mugabe.
"As a
result of the torture referred to above, and involuntarily, I made a
number
of . statements, which were all false and cannot be admissible in
court,"
Hitschmann said.
"In these statements I inter alia admitted to the
conspiracy with which I
was being charged and suggested that Mr Roy Bennett
was also involved in the
conspiracy.
"This was pure fiction and bore
no relationship at all to any reality."
Beatrice Mtetwa, the prominent
rights lawyer leading Bennett's legal team,
has used the trial to portray
Tomana as biased and untrustworthy, echoing
the MDC's view. Mtetwa asked the
court to condemn Tomana for using "fake"
evidence in the trial.
"An
AG [attorney general] is an AG for all of us. He is an AG for Roy
Bennett
and for anybody who is in Zimbabwe. The administration of justice
would be
put into disrepute if the evidence of Mr Hitschmann is allowed to
stand,"
Mtetwa told the court.
In Parliament debate began on two Bills that
would weaken Mugabe's control
of the central bank and the police. He has
vowed never to sack Gideon Gono,
the Reserve Bank governor, or Tomana. Aware
that they are unlikely to shift
Mugabe on this matter, at least not within
the SADC's 15-day deadline for
the resolution of outstanding disputes, the
MDC has turned to legislation.
Introducing the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
Bill, Finance Minister Tendai Biti
said reform was a key demand of donors.
Zimbabwe needed donors to fund the
2010 budget, which he will present this
month.
"We have failed to attract a single cent for budget support," he
said. "The
first thing that they [donors] ask is: 'Are you going to put our
money
through the central bank?' and I have no answer to that."
The
Bill will reduce the bank chief's powers by appointing an independent
board,
restricting the bank to the "core business" of managing interest
rates and
the currency and regulating financial services.
This week the MDC also
tabled an amendment to the Public Order and Security
Act, used by Mugabe for
years to harass opponents and crush dissent.
The amendment would remove
the power of the police to ban gatherings, giving
it to magistrates, and
scrap the requirement that citizens carry identity
cards.
This week
the president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, Lovemore
Matombo,
and four members of his staff were arrested under the Public Order
and
Security Act.
Old Mutual digs in over stake in Mugabe mouthpiece
Old
Mutual will not sell its stake in Zimbabwe Newspapers, despite a new
campaign to force disinvestment, the media group insisted this
week.
Old Mutual holds 22% of Zimpapers, in which the Zimbabwe government
has a
51% stake through the Mass Media Trust and which President Robert
Mugabe
uses as his party's mouthpiece.
A Cape Town-based lobby group
formed by expatriate Zimbabweans, Passop
(People Against Suffering,
Suppression, Oppression and Poverty), has
launched a campaign to force Old
Mutual to withdraw its investment. In a
statement this week, Passop said
that as the second-largest shareholder in
Zimbabwe Newspapers, the company
is "guilty of directly supporting the
Mugabe regime".
"While the
international community, appalled by the actions of the Zanu-PF
leadership,
imposes sanctions on Zimbabwe, your company's investment is
essentially
arming Mugabe's propaganda machine -- the equivalent of loading
bullets in
the guns that kill oppositional voices," it said.
It warned that if the
company maintained its investment, it would embark on
protests and engage
policyholders.
In a written response to the Mail & Guardian this
week, Old Mutual said that
its investment dated back to the pre-independence
era and that the
newspapers in question -- which include The Herald and The
Chronicle -- "are
just one asset in the Zimpapers group out of a number of
assets, which
represents our exposure to print, media and
publishing.
"This investment is held on behalf of our policyholders and
therefore this
is a portfolio investment," it said. "We do not influence or
involve
ourselves in their editorial policy."
The company said it
would continue to hold the investment "for as long as it
continues to make
investment sense for our policyholders".
The 22% stake Old Mutual holds
in Zimpapers is valued at $1,2-million
(almost R9-million).
The
insurance giant indicated in 2005 it was prepared to sell its stake
after
the investment was raised by board members of its R37-billion takeover
target, Swedish savings group Skandia. The Skandia board members charged
that Old Mutual's interest made the insurer and financial services group "an
unsuitable partner".
Having operated in Zimbabwe for more than a
century, Old Mutual is a
dominant force in the Zimbabwean economy. Apart
from running the country's
largest life insurance business -- it is said to
have more than 400000
policyholders and pension fund members -- it is the
largest institutional
investor on the Zimbabwe stock exchange, where it
holds a broad portfolio of
investments ranging from construction to retail
and financial services. The
company is also the largest owner of commercial
property in the country.
Despite continuing pressure on foreign companies
from the anti-Mugabe lobby
to end cooperation with the Zimbabwe government,
most foreign investors are
staying put.
http://www.businessday.co.za
CHARLOTTE MATHEWS
Published: 2009/11/13 06:41:57 AM
THE compromise clause in the
bilateral investment agreement between Zimbabwe
and SA, due to be signed in
Harare on November 27, provided security of
tenure for all existing and new
South African investments in Zimbabwe, but
excluded historical claims
arising from Zimbabwe's land reform process,
Trade and Industry Minister Rob
Davies said yesterday.
He was answering Business Day's questions
yesterday about the most
contentious clause , one of the issues that has
held up its finalisation for
seven years. Under Zimbabwe's land reform
process, large numbers of farms,
including some belonging to South African
s, were expropriated by the state
without compensation.
Davies
said the bilateral agreement with Zimbabwe would provide security for
any
South African investor in any sector, including agriculture, from now
on. SA
wanted to create certainty for investments in Zimbabwe that would
also help
with the economic recovery in Zimbabwe, but not reopen old wounds.
It
would have been impossible to negotiate this agreement with a
retrospective
clause, and SA believed it was necessary to contribute to
stabilising the
economy in Zimbabwe, which would also contribute to
political stability, he
said.
AgriSA president Johannes Möller said AgriSA was not advising
farmers to
invest in Zimbabwe. It was still concerned about farmers who had
lost their
land and was seeking meetings with the government
.
mathewsc@bdfm.co.za
A season of fear has returned to Zimbabwe and it is
unlikely that the patchwork performed on the fraying coalition government will
reverse its impact, at least not in the short run. Unlawful arrests, abductions,
beatings, torture, burning of homes and yes, killings too, by Zanu PF and state
agents, are again on the increase. The instigators bare their claws, threatening
terror for anyone who dares to oppose them. Not that the claws were ever fully
retracted; through over the past year there has been plenty of opportunity for
the predator to lurk in the shadows, and sharpen them for future use. Now the
time seems to have come to emerge and renew the hunt.
Just a month ago
there was still a lingering hope that the coalition government could save us. As
long as the political players maintained a peace, however uneasy, and the
economy could achieve even the slightest forward momentum, it seemed possible
that the future might promise some stability and eventually meaningful
development. Difficulties continued, and the harassment of the MDC (Movement for
Democratic Change) and obstruction of their policies was endemic. But as long as
the three parties remained together in government, there was a chance that,
little by little, enough influential Zanu PF policy-makers might begin to see a
better future in co-operation than in belligerence. Events of the past month
have tested these hopes, as MDC-T has wavered in the face of relentless pressure
making a partial withdrawal from power sharing and turning to SADC (Southern
African Development Community) for assistance. In spite of the apparent tougher
stance of SADC in the Maputo meeting of the troika on defence and politics at
the end of last week, few Zimbabweans put much trust in the thirty-day reprieve
that has now been announced.
We need to remind ourselves of the
circumstances in which this political marriage was created. After the stalemate
which followed the bloody run-off ‘election’ of June 2008, SADC, represented by
Thabo Mbeki, failed to point out to Mugabe that he had behaved illegally, was
illegitimately remaining in power and would therefore not receive recognition
and co-operation. In a remarkable disregard of their own democratic protocols,
instead of demanding that the will of the majority be honestly determined and
the winner endorsed, SADC insisted that the first-round winners must simply join
the losers who still held the reins of power.
During the negotiations
that led to the uncomfortable agreement, both sides knew that they had to
participate and must not be seen as the ones to withdraw. In spite of heavy
pressure from some quarters on the MDC not to enter the agreement with Zanu PF,
it was clear to most Zimbabweans that there was no alternative; the MDC had to
try, in order to relieve the suffering of the people and make an effort to get
the country’s economy on track again after its destruction by Zanu PF. It was
nevertheless also clear from the agreement made, and the final sharing of
ministries, that the MDC was entering this government with very little real
power. It could be assumed that Zanu PF would play hardball, co-operate as
little as possible, and wield the powers they still held to buttress their own
position. What was not so obvious was that Zanu PF would continue to blatantly
abuse those powers in full view of the region and of the world.
Some
progress in the economic sphere occurred during the first part of the year, but
now it appears that Zanu PF hardliners have carried the day. Their strategy has
been to continue as if nothing had changed, to harass and intimidate their MDC
‘partners’ in government, trying to provoke them into withdrawing. By using the
police, the attorney general’s office, the army and the militia, they have been
able to keep MDC-T on their back foot, completely off balance. The MDC-T has not
found any strategic direction by which to take the contest to Zanu PF’s corner,
and unsettle them as well. They put their hopes on the revival of the economy,
denying Zanu PF their former sources of patronage through the RBZ, and
delivering an improved standard of living for the people. But they have been
blocked and outmanoeuvred at every turn. Finally their frustration grew so great
that they ‘disengaged’.
MDC-T know that Zanu PF wants them out of
government; they know that if they withdraw they will be walking into the trap
set by the hardliners – hence their withdrawal which was not a withdrawal but a
‘disengagement’. And their prime tactic once again has been to cry to SADC to
‘do something’. The meeting in Maputo suggests that SADC may be prepared to take
a harder stance than previously against Zanu PF’s intransigence, but can we
expect that SADC would take effective action now, when they have done nothing
for the past decade? Hopes placed on President Zuma of South Africa have not
borne fruit so far and even if the Maputo language is harsher, Zimbabweans watch
with scepticism to see if this time will be different.
Tsvangirai’s
disengagement, though understandable in the face of such harassment, was
disappointing for several reasons. In the first place, it has not been clearly
understood either by Zimbabweans or by outsiders. News media refer to his
‘withdrawal’, as does Zanu PF, failing to identify the nice distinction, if
there is one. Unsophisticated Zimbabweans only know that something fundamental
has changed, Morgan has made a defensive move, and they are feeling the
heat.
Secondly, it appears that the step came as a result of the
persecution of Roy Bennett; while we know that there are many issues in dispute;
the timing was certainly unfortunate as inevitably it is interpreted as being
finally provoked by the Bennett issue. Bennett has suffered severely for his
political career but his harassment is hardly the most critical issue for the
coalition government – continuing farm invasions, rule of law, and the contest
for control of finances are surely all more significant for the future of the
country. The timing of the ‘disengagement’ left Tsvangirai open to Simba
Makoni’s accusation that this is about ‘jobs for the boys and girls’, and has
provoked the standard Zanu PF pre-occupation with race. While it is about the
basics of power, others have managed to make it appear like a mere
self-interested temper tantrum.
Thirdly, although economic recovery has
been slow, it has gradually been occurring. The Confederation of Zimbabwe
Industries reported a rise in industrial capacity utilisation from around 10 per
cent earlier in the year to over 30 per cent by August. Mining has picked up
significantly, achieving substantial increases in output in spite of irregular
power supplies. Foreign investors have been reticent, but many had re-entered
the economy through purchases of shares on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange. Since
the working of the coalition government is critical to the revival of the
economy, MDC-T’s move has already begun to scare off investors and threatens to
turn the slow progress into reverse.
Fourthly, it gave the hawks in Zanu
PF the excuse to go hunting again, deploying their militia, arresting, abusing,
burning, raping, and intimidating with wanton abandon. In the villages,
especially in Mashonaland, Manicaland and Masvingo, terror is on the increase,
and on the major roads, military road blocks are everywhere.
Robert
Mugabe could grandstand and plead injury – while he is attempting to implement
the agreement, MDC is playing games and is not serious, ‘stepping in
and
out’.
Meanwhile, the grassroots people whom the elephants are trampling
are becoming desperate and devoid of hope. Very little has improved for them
since February. Schools are open but education is now unaffordable for large
numbers; health care is even more impossible. Economic progress has not yet had
sufficient impact on people’s lives to take their vision beyond the next day or
the next week. Economically viable charges for basic services – water,
electricity, telephones, rates – which had not been allowed throughout the years
from 2000, are necessary, but with miserably low incomes no one can pay them.
A civil servant who earns between US$150 and US$200 receives a water
bill for US$15, an electricity bill for US$100, a telephone bill for US$60, and
a rates bill for US$40. She has school fees to pay for two or more children,
transport, food, health care, clothing to add onto that. Everyone is reeling
from the repeated shocks as they sink deeper and deeper into debt, and the
number of essential services beyond their reach grows. Enormous numbers of
electricity and telephone connections are being terminated, and water service
tips in the balance as the cholera season approaches. Furthermore, it is
impossible to assist oneself by selling assets as no one has money to buy
second-hand televisions, fridges, stereos, etc. Those living from rents cannot
collect their rent, those selling goods cannot sell. Second hand cars are
unbelievably cheap and houses on the market stand for months and years, in the
absence of significant mortgage loans or the capacity to repay them even if they
were there.
In the face of such daily torment people were not impressed
to hear that MDC-T had ‘left’ government. What did Morgan expect next? Loose
talk from some MDC members of going back for new elections are surely
preposterous in the current situation. What are they dreaming of? Of course,
internationally administered elections are one possible solution which should
have been resorted to years ago, but who is going to undertake that delicate
mission, when a UN rapporteur can be refused entry and deported from
Zimbabwe?
Will the appeal to SADC bear any fruit? Past experience does
not give much hope. The initial responses coming from South Africa as well as
others reflected the stance of family members telling an aggrieved wife to
return to an abusive marriage – that’s the way marriage is, you have to
accommodate, even suffer, it’s your duty, if you try you can work it out – with
complete disregard for the realities of power relationships. MDC-T was told to
go back into the GNU (Government of National Unity) because there is no
alternative, sent on their way by the now monotonous and self-serving, Zanu
PF-inspired refrain that Zimbabweans must solve their own
problems.
However, in spite of the inauspicious beginning, reports coming
from the initial confidential meetings of the troika foreign ministers suggested
that perhaps something more substantial might be brewing. Mugabe was reportedly
told that he has not been sticking to the constitutional agreement as he claims,
and he must do so. The Maputo meeting which followed the first SADC troika
interventions seems even more promising. The unexpected participation of Zuma
when South Africa is not a member of the troika signalled a further change in
wind direction. Mugabe emerged from that meeting tight-lipped and Tsvangirai
announced that he would return to full participation in government, giving Zanu
PF thirty days to comply with the key issues of the agreements.
But even
if Mugabe seemed chastened and disgruntled after these talks, this is his wont.
When he is cornered, he makes the appropriate noises of submission or keeps
quiet, only to return to defiance when the cat goes away. Unless the SADC
nations accept this reality and understand that Zanu PF is not going to give up
power unless they are forced to do so by whatever pressure SADC can agree to
apply, they will fail to achieve any break-through in Zimbabwe.
The MDC
appear to have backed themselves into a corner which may not be easy to get out
of. They have agreed to try again, without any clear concessions by Zanu PF
having been announced. What if the thirty days expire and nothing has changed,
or if minor adjustments are made but the real issues of power are ignored? What
then? Any extensions while waiting for SADC to act will only make MDC weaker. If
they decide to withdraw completely, they have no alternative strategy. They
cannot mobilise the people to make the country ungovernable. Not only would they
be crushed by Zanu PF’s security machinery; at this stage, this would be a
completely retrograde step taking the people back into total destitution and
more likely creating complete chaos and disintegration of the nation. Withdrawal
would leave Zanu PF the field to govern or misgovern as they wish, unleashing
further terror and open looting. If SADC does not act now to put pressure on
Zanu PF, will they act in a scenario of complete MDC-T withdrawal? Not likely.
And then…. check mate. Checkmate not just for MDC-T, but for all of
us.
The conclusion is painful. MDC-T has taken a terrifying gamble for
Zimbabwe. The odds are long. If they had not taken this step the outcome might
not have been any different, as Zanu PF was becoming ever bolder in their
defiant rejection of their responsibilities as governing partners. But the
present limbo in which we find ourselves, with a 30-day government openly
divided against itself, leaves us once again facing an uncertain, possibly
disastrous future. There is still room to hope for a miracle. Politicians are
elected to make the impossible possible. But if Morgan Tsvangirai fails to win
this gamble, Zimbabweans will have no politician to whom they can look to
achieve their dreams. And the future will have fear and chaos written all over
it.
BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS
* Mary Ndlovu is a Zimbabwean
human rights activist.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online
at Pambazuka
News.
In 1789 in Haiti, nearly
800,000 African slaves were ruled by a white
population that numbered only
32,000. The Haitian Revolution of 1791 is the
only successful slave
revolution in history. Haiti's self-determination
began with an insurgency
by slaves, not entirely black-opposed-to-white, and
rebellion. Haiti is the
world's oldest black republic and the second oldest
republic in the Western
Hemisphere after the United States. Polar opposites,
the US has the highest
per capita income and Haiti has the lowest.
Zimbabwe's war of liberation
was not a black-versus-white affair either. It
was about the elimination of
a white tyrannical government, the abolition of
racial discrimination, and
the establishment of a multi-ethnic and
democratic society. Prior to
Independence in 1980, two hundred thousand
whites ruled over seven million
blacks. Zimbabweans gained their political
and economic independence from
colonisation and attained black majority rule
by successfully waging a war
of liberation against a white minority.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the
former slave to a brutal white master, became
Haiti's first self-imposed
emperor. The viciousness of his enslavement
fuelled his own hatred for white
people (French slave owners had burned
alive, hanged, drowned, and tortured
slaves, reviving such practises as
burying blacks in piles of insects and
boiling them in cauldrons of
molasses.) In 1803, Dessalines allegedly tore
the white strip from the
French tri-colour flag, insisting that Haiti's flag
have two stripes-blue
and red-symbolising that the white had been ripped out
of Haiti. Close to
20,000 French whites were butchered in 1804 and the rest
were expelled from
Haiti.
Dessalines attempted to reinstate the
French plantation system in an effort
to maintain the lucrative sugar trade;
however, freed ex-slaves refused to
carry out the strenuous tasks necessary.
Dessalines became a brutal dictator
and ruled Haiti no less harshly than his
predecessors, the French slave
owners. As a Black-only republic, Haiti found
it difficult to trade with
other nations. Haiti became a polarised nation
(pitting dark skinned blacks
against light skinned blacks) their march
toward meaningful development as a
sovereign Black republic was disrupted
and derailed along with any hope of
global commerce.
After
Independence, Robert Mugabe said, "If ever we look to the past, let us
do so
for the lesson the past has taught us, namely that oppression and
racism are
inequities that must never again find scope in our political and
social
system. It could never be a correct justification that because whites
oppressed us yesterday when they had power, the blacks must oppress them
today because they have power."
ZANU (PF) political manifesto has
painted a picture which accuses white
farmers in Zimbabwe after Independence
of mistreating their workers, paying
them slave wages, and not providing
social amenities, schools and clinics on
their vast land holdings. Ten years
after the fast track land grab, the
ruling elite own those said farms,
receive state funding through the RBZ,
pay their workers less than US$1 per
day, and provide no social amenities.
Those farms are now the preserve of
the ruling class and farm worker welfare
has deteriorated to
pre-Independence levels.
Farm workers are poorer not because the farms
were taken over by a black
person but because the farms are being run by
incompetent "farmers". They
are not bad farmers because they happen to
black, but the lack of
rudimentary husbandry skills, the deficiency of
essential agrarian
experience and the absence of agro-business
acumen.
Zimbabwe's wealth lies in its human resources and its unique
ability to feed
itself and export surplus agricultural produce; minerals
such as gold,
platinum and diamonds are a bonus. The social and economic
stratification of
Zimbabwe's peoples into povos and chefs-haves and
have-nots-is creating a
permanent divide based on affiliation to a political
party, which claims to
have "liberated" all Zimbabweans from colonial
bondage. This divide grows
wider when those same "liberators" embark on a
vengeful retribution of white
Zimbabweans whose crime is having the same
skin colour of that of the
colonisers.
ZANU (PF) has crafted an
investment undermining legislation, which it is
about to enforce. The
"Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act" passed
in 2007 is a
constitutional veil designed to legally enable the
misappropriation of
private property, enrich the ruling political elite, and
to further
disenfranchise fellow Zimbabweans who do not fall into the
retrogressive
definition and classification of "indigenous".
This proposed law goes
against the aspirations of the majority who yearn for
Zimbabwe to become a
productive member of the G20, and a progressive global
citizen. This
proposed law, in effect, begets the same downward spiral
journey that our
fellow Haitians began over two hundred years ago and have
not been able to
reverse since.
As per the act, "indigenous Zimbabwean" means any person
who, before the
18th April, 1980, was disadvantaged by unfair discrimination
on the grounds
of his or her race, and any descendant of such person, and
includes any
company, association, syndicate or partnership of which
indigenous
Zimbabweans form the majority of the members or hold the
controlling
interest.
With corporate taxation at 49%, the ZANU (PF)
government only leaves 51%
after tax profits for the company's
shareholders. So if 51% of a company's
equity is forced to go to an
"indigenous" person that leaves 0% profits for
the foreign investor. Which
investor in their right mind would invest in a
country where one is
guaranteed of zero profit?
When will this vortex of vindictive ethnic
reprisals and avaricious racist
vengeances end?
Phil Matibe -
www.madhingabucketboy.com