URGENT BULLETIN
Herewith a copy of a letter sent to Prime Minister Howard
of Australia
prior to the Commonwealth Troika meeting in Abuja on Monday,
copies of
which have been forwarded to other members of the troika. This
letter
will appear in the press on Sunday. Discussed therein are issues
of
extreme national importance. Please distribute this letter as widely
as
possible.
The Honourable John Howard
Prime Minister of
Australia
Commonwealth Troika
Dear
Prime minister,
Re: Meeting Of Commonwealth Troika - Abuja, Nigeria 23rd
September 2001
Justice for Agriculture (JAG) is a group of concerned
Zimbabweans with a
mission to secure justice, peace and freedom for the
agricultural sector.
Its contribution to the Zimbabwean economy is presently
under attack,
which has led to the displacement of expertise, causing poverty
and
starvation.
JAG incorporates the interests of commercial farm
owners, farm workers,
as well as the agricultural ancillary industries and
their employees.
Its mission is to safeguard and support people directly
affected, in
whatever way possible, and to document and expose the injustices
and
human rights abuses being perpetrated against them. These rights
are
enshrined within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as adopted
by
Zimbabwe, a member of the United Nations.
JAG remains determined to
find a lasting and just solution to the crisis
currently facing the
agricultural sector, in accordance with the freely
expressed wishes of the
people.
JAG is not adverse to reforms but the manner in which the reform
is being
implemented is not within the law and constitution of Zimbabwe. Just
this
past week Parliament was called into session to debate a new bill,
which
awaits the President's endorsement. The need to make this amendment
is
further proof that Land Reform has been implemented without due regard
to
the Zimbabwean Laws and Constitution.
THE WAY FORWARD
1. A
return to a legally recognised Land Reform Programme - "People
first".
The 10-year resettlement programme "People First", adopted
in June 2001
said government had already listed 6 million hectares
for acquisition,
One million more than it thought it would need for
resettlement in that
period, and it would start de-listing. Another 4
million hectares have
instead been added to the lists. The programme
has been doubled in area
and shortened from 5 years down to just one,
without resources to pay for
any part of it. It was to spread land
acquisitions over 5 years to 2005
and to still leave a 6 million
hectare "strategic core" which government
recognised was necessary
for economic and other reasons and assured
everyone it would be
leaving alone.
2. A return to the previously
adopted criteria and the delisting of
farms acquired that cannot be
turned into productive units due to
budgetary restrictions in terms of
inputs and compensation. Despite
previously set criteria, 1 024 single
owned farms have been listed
for acquisition with at least 50% of these
farmers being off their
farms and unable to produce. A large number of
these were stopped
from farming after the signing of the 6th September
Accord.
3. Appointment of an impartial board in accordance with the
Land
Acquisition Act and Constitution, and the Agricultural Land
Settlement Act governing applications for allocation of land.
Conduct an
independent audit. The laws regarding allocation have not
been complied
with. An impartial board, with no members of
Parliament, is required to
consider each application for a lease,
with specific criteria to be taken
into account, and make
recommendations. This has not been
done.
4. Promises have repeatedly been made of a transparent land
reform
programme, but little detailed information is available about
the
ultimate beneficiaries. There are serious problems over the
allocations, arising in part from the Minister's announcement in
April
that maximum farm sizes would not apply to blacks, only whites.
The few
published lists and information from farms show that some
people,
particularly those associated with police and defense forces,
government,
and the ruling party are receiving pieces of land far
larger than those
maximums, largely at the expense of other
Zimbabweans including farm
workers.
a) Over 50 000 people were promised "commercial" plots of
land
before the election, their names published as approved applicants.
Only
about 12 000 seem to have actually been allocated land. The overall
total
names officially published of those who have now been allocated
and
accepted land is only about 6 456 names, on 698 farms. The number
of
farms thus shown is insignificant.
1. The Polarisation of
Zimbabweans. This current environment is not
conducive to true democracy
and this has also allowed for the
denuding of the rule of law.
a)
Property Rights are enshrined in the principles of FREEDOM.
Commercial
Farmers owned 28,2 of Commercial land, of this 97% has been
listed for
compulsory acquisition. Despite this, Government is silent on
the aspect of
Title. The new beneficiaries of the A2 Resettlement Model
(Commercial) are
receiving mixed signals and already the Banking sector
have said they will
not fund new farmers who do not possess collateral.
Commercial Farming can
only succeed on the basis of "Security of Tenure
and Collateral".
b)
Settlers trying to use contested land risk losing all they plant
if the
Administrative Court decides against the government. The Court
must order the
return of the land, and there is not provision for the
interim settlers to
receive compensation. Because of this, banks will
not lend funds invested
with them to the new settlers on those farms.
There is insufficient money or
resources to help the new settlers
together with those already needing help
elsewhere in the country after
the failure of last years dry land crop,
mainly because of delays in
paying for the previous years maize crop and
delayed planting.
1. Government of Zimbabwe to make a public statement
calling for
Settlers/War veterans/ other persons to cease interfering in
the
vital production process on legally correct farms and where there
are
violations, to press for convictions of offenders.
a) Unlisted
white farmers who thought they were being left as part of
that 6 million
hectare core and planted crops have since found their
farms listed, then been
given an order from the Minister to stop farming
and leave their homes before
completing harvest.
b) Allowing the farm owners to reap, harvest and
market all Wheat
grown.
c) Urgently allowing an environment conducive
to the planting of
Tobacco Seed beds. The arrests of Tobacco farmers in the
last few weeks
compromised 4.3 million kgs of flue cured tobacco valued at
Z$1.4 billion
and severely eroded confidence at a crucial time.
d)
Allow for the Agricultural sector to dialogue amongst themselves
WITHOUT
political interference to source ways to plant food crops
necessary to
ameliorate widespread starvation for Zimbabweans.
1. Government of
Zimbabwe to clarify Compensation issues. Farmers are
being ordered and
coerced to pay retrenchment packages, we believe in
lieu of the farm
workers getting land. Moreover, under the
Constitution, when the
government does not act in accordance with its
programme, it is required
to promptly pay full "fair compensation",
including for the land itself.
It clearly has no funds allocated or
available for this, again contrary
to the law.
a) Section 16(1) of the Constitution requires any law for
compulsory
acquisition a) to require the authority to give reasonable notice
of an
intention to acquire, and b) to require the authority to pay
compensation
before or within a reasonable time after acquiring it. Only 106
owners
have received payment (in part) since January 2000, and the Minister
has
announced he is not paying anything more to owners now. The draft
budget
for next year contains no allocation for land acquisition.
1.
Rule of Law Commitment. Despite the promises made on the 6th
September
2001, lawlessness continues unabated on the farms.
a) The land reform
programme conducted over the last 3 years has been
both brutal and chaotic.
Farmers and their loyal staff have had their
homes burnt down; had their
equipment and personal assets looted and
stolen; many have been subjected to
torture and been unlawfully
imprisoned. Despite this level of criminal
behavior often perpetrated by
state sponsored elements, no farmer or their
workers have retaliated with
firearms, even under the most extreme
provocation. Scores of persons in
our sector have been murdered and yet not
one conviction has been
secured. Instead the State, hell-bent on their
"propaganda" campaign
"fast-tracked" the case of Philip Bezuidenhout and
after a three-week
campaign of intimidation on the judiciary, we are not
surprised that he
was sentenced to 15 years in prison, saved from a Death
sentence by a
"whisker" after Judge Hlatshwayo allowed extenuating
circumstances.
Prime Minister, Justice for Agriculture are aware that
unless Zimbabweans
take back the production of food from Politicians who
merely use it as a
tool, there will be a humanitarian crisis of enormous
proportions come
November/December. Our people are already hard hit with the
HIV/Aids
pandemic and to burden their immune systems with low nutrition at
this
time is tantamount to committing a murder most foul.
I, request
on behalf of my executive and on behalf of the agricultural
sector, for your
intervention in curbing political interference that
lends a lie to the true
meaning of Sovereignty, defined as "The
sovereign good the greatest good",
esp. for a State, its people, etc. Give
assist us to make our leadership
accountable to the disasters they have
perpetrated against their own
people.
Yours faithfully,
For and on behalf of Justice for
Agriculture
David
Conolly
CHAIRMAN
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
As
a result of the article in the Independent dated Friday 20th
September
entitled "CFU, JAG join hands" JAG is encouraged by the CFU's
attitude.
However on the issues raised in JAG's letter to the CFU of 14th
Sepember as
regards the "one man, one farm" representative action by the
CFU and a single
policy by the CFU rather than fragmented policies from
the farmers
association level, these issues and this letter have not been
addressed. In
the light of the above, JAG remains both cautious and
suspicious about this
article and the insinuation
therein.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
VOLUNTEERS
NEEDED
JAG are desperate for more volunteers for the various support
groups:
> Trauma and stress counselling groups
> Housing
procurement group
> Fund raising group
> Loss document
database group
> Office staff
Please contact Di Southey on 011
424712 and register with us, giving
details of your skills and talents.
Likewise farmers with transport rigs
for contract works should register with
our transport association by
completing the relevant forms.
THE
JAG TEAM
Hotlines:
(011) 205374 Please call if you need advice or
are
(011) 863354 in trouble - we're here to help
(091)
317264
_______________________________________________
Justice for
Agriculture mailing list
To subscribe/unsubscribe: Please write to jag-list-admin@mango.zw
Dear Family and Friends,
Summer has arrived in Zimbabwe, the days are
getting longer, the sun is getting warmer and it's perfect weather for farming
and for sport. I sat on the edge of a sports field one evening this week to
watch my son playing a friendly hockey game. I'm not really in to sport so had
taken a newspaper to read but after an hour and a half had not even read one
paragraph as I got talking to a stranger who sat next to me. The stranger was an
11 year old farmer's son and when I asked him why he wasn't playing, my question
opened a flood gate This boy is one of thousands
of Zimbabwean children whose life has been changed forever. His parents have
been chased off their farm; the only home the boy had ever known has been taken
over and he is struggling to understand it and come to terms with reality. He
asked me if I could help him to understand some things. He asked me why these
men are doing these things to us. Why they are taking all our things. Why they
want our houses and why the police don't do anything to stop them. He asked me
why the men grabbing farms aren't growing any crops and where all the food is
going to come from. He wanted to know why some of these so called new farmers
are just breaking everything in the farm houses, smashing baths and toilets off
walls and stripping roofing off houses. He asked me why President Mugabe doesn't
like whites any more and asked me what we'd done to make him do these awful
things to us. He said that his mum had told him that he must just try and
forget the farm and that he must stop worrying but the boy just
cannot.
Now an 11 year old boy worries about if his mum and
dad will get jobs in Harare. He says they only know how to do farming and he's
not sure if they are going to manage in other jobs. He said they've both had to
go back to school like him to learn other jobs. He said that all his friends are
leaving and that his best best mate had recently left for Australia. "Who's
going to be left?" he asked me. "Why don't our parents want to tell us what's
really going to happen?" he asked, "why don't they just tell us things?" he
asked with a choked voice. I didn't have a lot of answers for a strange 11 year
old boy sitting next to me on the edge of a hockey pitch. More than once I
couldn't stop my eyebrows from raising as I heard words of despair, anger,
frustration and deep sadness. I was amazed at the depth of an 11 year old boy's
questions and often felt as if I was talking to an adult. As the hockey game
came to an end, the stranger and I parted.
When I left the boy was playing dinky cars with
some other children in the dusty driveway under a majestic full moon and we
waved to each other. He'd gone back to being a child and even though we'll
probably never see each other again I hope that one day both he and I will have
answers to some of his questions.
This huge tragedy in Zimbabwe is reaching a climax
now as we are just three weeks away from the main planting season. If I was one
of Zimbabwe's so called new farmers I would be tearing my hair out by now as
there is still not one single pip of seed maize to be bought in any of the main
farming stores in this part of the country. When we grew maize on our Marondera
farm before it was taken over, the seed and fertilizer would already have been
in the sheds waiting, the land would have been ploughed and ready and
the seasonal workers would have been recruited and be standing by to plant by
the first or second week of October as soon as the rain arrived. I phoned the
major seed maize suppliers in Marondera this morning. None have any seed in
stock and do not know when it is expected to arrive. Even worse though, a UN
humanitarian report just released says the government's main land preparation
team have only 50% of their fleet of tractors serviceable and available for
ploughing. The report also says that most of the so called new farmers do not
have animal draught power and in other areas there is foot and mouth disease
which has drastically reduced animal power. Agricultural experts say that at
best, even with the money government has put aside for farm inputs, only 15% of
the resettled farm land will be prepared and ready to plant with the onset of
the rains.
We are at the beginning of what weather experts
have predicted will be a difficult and erratic rainy season in Zimbabwe. This
would have been a hard enough year for professional farmers and their workers
who would have been expected to feed the revised 6.8 million starving people in
the country. It is an impossible task for the so called new farmers who cannot
plough the land they have been given, have no machinery or equipment and even if
they had the money, there is no seed to plant just a fortnight or two before the
rains begin. Our government continue to deny the existence of these cold, ugly
facts though and addressing the UN summit in America this week, President Mugabe
again told Britain and other world critics to keep out of Zimbabwe. We can only
assume that he does not want anyone to see just exactly what he has done to our
once thriving land. Until next week, with love, cathy. http://africantears.netfirms.com
Copyright Cathy Buckle 21st September
2002.
Over 600,000 Zimbabweans live with full-blown AIDS:
official
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Xinhuanet 2002-09-21 14:33:41
HARARE, Sept. 21 (Xinhuanet)
-- Zimbabwean Minister of Health and
Child Welfare David Parirenyatwa has
disclosed that more than 600,000 people
in the country are currently living
with full-blown AIDS while about 2.1
million others living with
HIV.
The number of children orphaned through the disease has
been put
at 900,000.
Local media Saturday quoted the
minister as saying that an
estimated 26 percent of the adults was infected
with the deadly virus.
However, about 90 percent do not know their HIV
status.
Speaking at the launch of an AIDS testing center in the
resort
town of Victoria Falls on Friday, Parirenyatwa said the impact of HIV
was
fast eroding national achievements in the health sector and putting
enormous
strain on already over-stretched financial resources.
"The premature deaths of young and middle-aged adults are
adversely
affecting the socio-economic base of our planned development, thus
creating
serious challenges for our nation," he said.
The government, in
conjunction with the United States Agency for
International Development, is
funding the project while Population Services
International is the
implementing partner.
The Victoria Falls center brings to 13
the total number of
suchcenters around the country. Since 1999 when the
project started, more
than 88,000 people have sought services at the centers
countrywide.
It was said that over the next five years the
United States will
contribute 50 million US dollars to mitigate the AIDS
crisis in Zimbabwe.
Enditem
MSNBC
Zimbabwe opposition urges C'wealth action on
Mugabe
HARARE, Sept. 20 - Zimbabwe's main opposition urged the
Commonwealth on
Friday to take sterner action against President Robert Mugabe
for refusing a
re-run of disputed March elections and failing to stop
political violence.
The call comes ahead of a key Commonwealth meeting
in Nigeria on
Monday where the leaders of South Africa, Nigeria and
Australia, comprising
a so-called troika, are to consider further action
against Zimbabwe.
The Commonwealth suspended Zimbabwe from its
councils for a year
after Mugabe's controversial win in a March poll
condemned as fraudulent by
some Western nations and the opposition Movement
for Democratic Change
(MDC).
But the grouping of 54 mainly former
British colonies stopped short
of full suspension or imposing
sanctions.
''Since being suspended...the incumbent regime in Zimbabwe
has made
no effort to stop electoral violence and fraud, restore the rule of
law, end
state sponsored political violence and restore democratic legitimacy
to the
country,'' the MDC said.
The opposition says 16 mainly
opposition supporters have died in
political violence since the March
polls.
''The MDC urges the leaders of the troika...to make a
concerted
effort to encourage Mugabe to step down so that a fresh
presidential
election can take place in Zimbabwe under free and fair
conditions and the
rule of law and democratic legitimacy can be restored,''
it said in a
statement.
Zimbabwe has been gripped by a political
and economic crisis since
the government launched a campaign in 2000 to seize
white-owned farms for
redistribution to landless blacks.
HARARE
INSISTS POLL WAS FAIR
The MDC has accused Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF
party of using violence
to win the presidential poll, a charge dismissed by
the government.
''The presidential poll was free, fair, legitimate and
representative
of the will of the majority of the people in Zimbabwe,''
foreign affairs
secretary Willard Chiwewe was quoted as saying in the
state-owned Herald
newspaper on Friday.
''We hope they (the
Commonwealth troika) will be able to come to that
conclusion,'' he
said.
Harare has said its suspension was based on
a
''fundamentally-flawed'' report by the Commonwealth observer group,
which
was damning of the election process.
A group of southern
African parliamentarians were also critical of
the election, but observers
from South Africa, Nigeria and Namibia said the
poll was
legitimate.
Some Commonwealth members have said it is important to
take the same
action over Zimbabwe as Fiji which was suspended and faced
limited trade
sanctions after a nationalist coup in 2000.
''I think
Zimbabwe has just thumbed its nose at the Commonwealth
opinion. It's thumbed
its nose at world opinion,'' Australian Prime Minister
John Howard said on
Thursday.
Zimbabwe's crisis deepened in August when Mugabe ordered
2,900
commercial farmers to quit their land without compensation under
his
controversial land scheme.
But some 2,500 farmers have defied
the initial orders, and police
have charged more than 300 of them, says the
farmers' group Justice for
Agriculture.
ZANU-PF party pushed a bill
through parliament on Wednesday giving it
power to evict within days white
farmers accused of using legal loopholes to
hang onto their land.
Mugabe has been in power since Zimbabwe gained independence from
Britain in
1980. He says his land drive is aimed at correcting colonial
injustices which
left 70 percent of the country's best farmland in the hands
of white
farmers.
ninemsn
Nations can't ask for Mugabe to quit: PM
The
Commonwealth had no power to call for the resignation of Zimbabwe
President
Robert Mugabe but would consider other courses of action, Prime
Minister John
Howard said.
Mr Howard flew out of Sydney bound for Nigeria where he will
meet with
Nigerian President Chief Olusegum Obasanjo and South African
President Thabo
Mbeki.
The three leaders make up the Commonwealth
troika charged with monitoring
the situation in Zimbabwe.
They will
consider whether to kick Zimbabwe out of the Commonwealth for
ignoring
international pressure to reform its economy and political
processes after
electoral corruption and human rights abuses.
"It's going to be quite an
uphill task because Zimbabwe so far has been
quite indifferent to the views
of other Commonwealth countries and the views
of other countries around the
world," Mr Howard said at the Qantas Jet Base.
"Zimbabwe has not
responded to the concerns expressed at our meeting in
March where we imposed
12 months suspension from the Councils of the
Commonwealth.
"We'll
discuss what's happened since then and what further action we can
take on
behalf of the Commonwealth."
Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC),
has urged the Commonwealth troika to
call for Mr Mugabe to step down so
fresh presidential elections could take
place in Zimbabwe.
But Mr Howard said the troika did not have the
authority to call for Mr
Mugabe's resignation.
"What our authority is
from the Commonwealth is to deal with the clearly
unsatisfactory nature of
the election," he said.
Mr Howard said the troika would not necessarily
impose further sanctions on
the suspended country.
"We haven't decided
on sanctions and in any event sanctions would be flowing
from discussions
taken by individual countries."
Mr Mugabe was invited to meet with the
troika in Abuja but Mr Howard said he
had received no indication of whether
or Mr Mugabe would attend.