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TATCHELL FLOORED BY MUGABE MINDERS - SKY news

Sky News
British gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell was beaten and knocked to the ground by bodyguards as he attempted a ‘citizen’s arrest’ on Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe.

The confrontation took place in Belgium, where Mugabe had lunch at the Brussels Hilton hotel with EU Development Aid Commissioner Poul Nielsen.

Mugabe has attracted the anger of gay campaigners by saying homosexuals are “worse than dogs”, as well as of foreign governments and human rights activists, as his followers throw white farmers off their land and force judges to resign and journalists to flee.

'Torturer'

As Mugabe walked past, surrounded by security men, Tatchell branded him a torturer and demanded his arrest for breaking the 1984 United Nations Convention against torture.

He was wrestled to one side by several security men as Mugabe was ushered towards his waiting car. Outside on the pavement, Tatchell was held against a wall, still yelling "torturer", and was then punched in the face, falling to the ground.

He claimed afterwards that his assailant, who walked briskly off to a car in Mr Mugabe's motorcade refusing to identify himself, had said: "We will find you and kill you".

'Stood by'

As Mugabe climbed into the back his car, Tatchell moved forward again and was knocked to the ground, where he fell unconscious against the side of a limousine.

As he recovered from the attack, he condemned Belgian police who stood by without intervening.

from Ananova .......... Peter Tatchell has been beaten unconscious by Zimbabwean security guards in Brussels after attempting a citizen's arrest on President Robert Mugabe.

Human rights campaigner Mr Tatchell, who was left unconscious in the gutter, condemned Belgian police who stood by without intervening.

Mr Tatchell says he was pinned to a wall and then hit in the face, before being knocked to the ground where he briefly lost consciousness.

The incident occurred as Mr Mugabe, on a visit to European capitals, left the Hilton Hotel after lunch with EU Development Aid Commissioner Poul Nielsen.

Mr Tatchell, who has confronted the President of Zimbabwe several times before, was waiting in the hotel lobby with journalists.

As Mr Mugabe walked past, surrounded by security men, Mr Tatchell branded him a torturer and demand his arrest for breaking the 1984 United Nations Convention against torture.

He was wrestled to one side by several security men as Mr Mugabe was ushered towards his waiting car. Outside on the pavement, Mr Tatchell was held against a wall, still yelling "torturer" and was then punched in the face, falling to the ground.

He claimed afterwards that his assailant, who walked briskly off to a car in Mr Mugabe's motorcade refusing to identify himself, had said: "We will find you and kill you."

As Mr Mugabe climbed into the back his car, Mr Tatchell moved forward again and was knocked to the ground, where he fell unconscious against the side of a limousine.

The motorcade moved off to Mr Mugabe's next appointment with Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt. Mr Tatchell was helped up but refused offers of medical assistance.
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 5 March

Gang kills mother of murdered Zimbabwe farmer

Harare - Gloria Olds, 68, was ambushed at the gates of her homestead on Silverstreams Farm, 350 miles south-west of Harare. She was the seventh white farmer killed since last April. Her son, Martin, who lived on the neighbouring Compensation Farm, was murdered in a dawn raid by 70 gunmen on April 18. Although Silverstreams is not among the 900 white farms still occupied by squatters, neighbours believe the murder of Mrs Olds was a political killing.

The entire farming community around Nyamandhlovu, which has been particularly affected by the land invasions, joined a search for the killers, fanning out across the bush in four-wheel-drive vehicles, guided by two light aircraft. The getaway vehicle was spotted heading north towards Tsholotsho and a witness told farmers that it contained three men. But it was soon lost amid the winding tracks and dense bush. Police officers were sent to the scene, though farmers bitterly remember that the killers of Martin Olds were allowed through a police road block while making their getaway. No one has been convicted for his murder, or any of the others.

President Robert Mugabe called white farmers "our enemies" on national television a few hours after that killing. Mrs Olds, who lived alone following the death of her husband, Alf, in 1998, went to open her gates at 6.30am, her normal routine. Two gunmen lying in wait shot her with AK-47 assault rifles. They also killed her three dogs before breaking through the gate and stealing a white Toyota pick-up in which they made their getaway. There was no attempt to break into the farmhouse.

Mrs Olds leaves a surviving son, David, 48, and four grandchildren. She was born in Britain and moved to what was then Rhodesia as an infant. The family of her late son fled to Britain after his murder. Squatters have occupied all but a handful of the farms around Silverstreams and the murder of Mrs Olds was yet another blow for the embattled community. Helen Herbst, who lives on nearby Porter Farm, said: "This is intimidation designed to get us whites off the land. It's as simple as that." After the murder of her son Mrs Olds, described by a friend as "very fit, very active", had continued to run her cattle ranch with the help of her other son, David, who lives in Bulawayo, which is nearby. There were 47 recorded political murders in Zimbabwe last year. Chris Jarrett, chairman of the Nyamandhlovu farmers' association, said: "This madness has affected everybody in the area."

From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 5 March

Chirac is urged to cancel talks with Mugabe

Brussels/Harare - Zimbabwe's opposition called on President Chirac yesterday to cancel a meeting with President Robert Mugabe in Paris tomorrow and urged all European governments to isolate the Harare regime. Learnmore Jongwe, a spokesman for the MDC, said: "We wonder what kind of business the world wants to have with a criminal. We believe the international community should be firm. It should be careful not to give legitimacy to governments that have become despotic, like that led by Mugabe."

M Chirac's decision to meet the Zimbabwean president during his tour of Europe did not surprise observers in Harare. After the breakdown of Mr Mugabe's relations with Britain, the former colonial power, France has made a concerted effort to forge close links with Zimbabwe. In January, Mr Mugabe was one of a handful of English-speaking leaders to attend a summit of Francophone African countries in Cameroon after a special invitation from M Chirac. Didier Ferrand, the French ambassador in Harare, is one of the last European envoys who still pays regular calls on the president.

Western diplomats believe that France is pursuing its traditional rivalry with Britain in Africa by exploiting the opportunity to detach Zimbabwe from the "Anglo Saxon" bloc of countries. Today, Mr Mugabe is meeting Poul Nielson, the European Union development commissioner, and a senior Swedish diplomat representing the current EU presidency. He will also meet Guy Verhofstadt, the Belgian Prime Minister. EU officials were anxious yesterday to play down the significance of Mr Mugabe's visit, saying the meeting with Mr Nielson would not "involve the red carpet, but would be formal".

In weekend talks, the European Commission and the Swedes decided to express joint disapproval of Zimbabwe's domestic policies. These include the regime's intimidation of the opposition press and the judiciary which led to the decision last week by Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay, 68, to step down immediately. The commission denied that it had been furtive about the Mugabe talks when it failed to list them on the business agenda.

From The Guardian (UK), 5 March

Andrew Osborn

Peter Tatchell, the gay rights activist, will try to disrupt Mr Mugabe's visit to Brussels today, and demand that the African leader be arrested for the alleged torture of two Zimbabwean journalists. Mr Tatchell, who attempted a citizen's arrest of Mugabe in London two years ago, will present senior Belgian officials with a report from Amnesty International, and urge them to detain him for violating the UN convention against torture.

Editorial from The Daily Telegraph (UK), 5 March

Call Mugabe to account

The mother of a murdered white farmer is gunned down outside her house. The Chief Justice is forced out of office, leaving the rule of law hanging by a thread. Foreign journalists are expelled. The economy is in free fall, with the prospect of food shortages at the end of the year. In such circumstances, Robert Mugabe chooses to undertake a tour of Europe.

Tomorrow, the president will meet his French counterpart in Paris. Jacques Chirac has been cultivating his guest as things have gone from bad to worse in Zimbabwe. The two men held talks last year, and in January Mr Mugabe was one of the few English-speaking leaders invited to the Francophone summit in Cameroon. Didier Ferrand, the French ambassador in Harare, pays regular courtesy calls on the president and vice-president, and is covered by state television doing so. Mr Ferrand has said that France is not concerned about Zimbabwe's internal affairs.

French vanity and cynicism are breathtaking. Last June, European Union observers condemned Zimbabwe's parliamentary elections as neither free nor fair, and since then the situation has worsened. France's EU partner, Britain, is nonsensically blamed for plotting to undermine Mr Mugabe. Yet Mr Chirac and his envoy go out of their way to cultivate the president. The economy, shrinking faster than any other in Africa, can have no attraction for them. They simply cannot resist the temptation to cock a snook at world opinion and dilute British influence in Africa. Perfides francais.

Rather than being welcomed at the Elysee, Mr Mugabe deserves to be treated as a pariah. The British Government should follow the advice of Francis Maude, the shadow foreign secretary, and urge Zimbabwe's expulsion from the Commonwealth. Robin Cook might usefully ask Hubert Vedrine what game France is playing in Zimbabwe; the Foreign Secretary and his French opposite number were supposed to have agreed not to compete in Africa. On his forthcoming visit to Harare, Thabo Mbeki, the South African president, ought to make clear that the limits of tolerance have been reached. A country which aspires to leadership of an African renaissance makes a mockery of that ambition by ignoring thuggery on its doorstep.

Zimbabwe's president is one of the last African independence leaders still in office. He shares with that generation a determination to cling to power by whatever means. Latterly, this has taken the form of making the whites and their foreign supporters scapegoats for his mistakes. It is expected that Mr Mugabe will call a presidential election later this year and, through intimidation, secure himself a further six-year term. Invincible he may be at home, but that is no excuse for foreign accommodation with his gross misrule.

From The Daily News, 3 March

Chiyangwa was a Rhodesian police reservist

Phillip Chiyangwa, the outspoken Member of Parliament for Chinhoyi, served as a police reservist with the British South Africa Police, the Rhodesian predecessor of the Zimbabwe Republic Police, before independence in 1980. Chiyangwa, a leading proponent of affirmative action, has on a number of occasions in Parliament attacked some members of the MDC, notably David Coltart and Giles Mutsekwa, for having served in the Rhodesian army.

Mutsekwa, a former major in the Rhodesian army, and Chiyangwa openly traded accusations and pointed fingers across the floor over the issue. Reacting to a photograph which was published in The Independent yesterday, in which he is shown in Rhodesian police uniform and holding an FN assault rifle, Chiyangwa said: "That is my picture. I have never seen it before. I will give a reward of $10 000 to anyone who brings to me that picture." He then attacked The Daily News for allegedly writing negative stories about him, saying: "Your paper always wants to demonise me. I was forced to join that reserve police force, but you want to give the public the impression that I betrayed the liberation struggle."

He queried why The Daily News was not writing critical stories about people such as Olivia Muchena, the Minister of State in Vice-President Joseph Msika's Office, who served in Bishop Abel Muzorewa's Zimbabwe-Rhodesia government. Chiyangwa said he was forcibly recruited while working for Falcon Gold Mine in Bulawayo. The MP for Mt Darwin South, Saviour Kasukuwere, Chiyangwa's ally in the fight for black empowerment, was the first person to reveal back in 1998 that the outspoken businessman had been a member of the Rhodesian police force. Kasukuwere and Chiyangwa were fighting over issues concerning the Affirmative Action Group.

Chiyangwa claimed he had been in the police for only two weeks, but a senior police officer last night said it was impossible for someone to be issued with a gun after only two weeks in the force. He said: "Right now, someone would have done six months to be issued with a gun. For a Special Constabulary, one would have to be exceptionally good with weapons to be issued a gun in less than six months. In the first place, police recruits are trained in the theory of a gun, how the bullets move, how to strip a gun and then you spend two weeks on the shooting range. Otherwise there would be many cases of accidental gun discharges."

From The Wall Street Journal, 2 March

Eleven Lebanese nationals are arrested for assassination of Congo's President

Kinshasa - Eleven Lebanese nationals have been arrested in connection with the assassination of Congo's former president, officials and human-rights activists said. Floribert Chebeya, president of the Voice of the Voiceless rights group, said Thursday that the 11 were arrested on Jan. 16, the night of the slaying of Laurent Kabila. Government spokesman Dominique Sakombi and the leader of the Kinshasa-based Lebanese community, Abdul Aschour, confirmed the arrests. But both declined to comment on widespread rumors that at least some of those detained had been killed.

"According to a persistent rumor, they may have been executed," Mr. Chebeya said at a news briefing, adding that the report of the deaths hadn't been independently confirmed. The Lebanese Embassy couldn't be reached for comment. Lebanese nationals have long made up a significant part of Congo's business community. A witness to the events that followed Mr. Kabila's slaying said the names of those arrested were found on a list in the pocket of the killer, a bodyguard who was himself killed after gunning down the late president at his palace. The witness declined to be identified.

Mr. Chebeya also confirmed the arrests of two top government officials, Eddy Kapend and General Yav Nawej, as part of an inquiry into the assassination. Both are ethnic Lundas from Congo's mineral-rich Katanga region, where people are known for their links with the country's ally, Angola. "Other members of Kapend's tribe have also been arrested," Mr. Chebeya said. He gave no further details. A senior Congolese military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Wednesday that the two officials were arrested Feb. 19 and were being interrogated.

The reason for Mr. Kabila's killing remains unclear. His son, Joseph, was quickly appointed his successor, and an inquiry into the elder Mr. Kabila's death was launched on Feb. 6. The investigating body's conclusions are expected on March 6. Congo, backed by Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia, has been battling rebel groups supported by Uganda and Rwanda since August 1998. The war has left the sprawling Central African nation carved up into rebel- and government-controlled regions. A 1999 cease-fire agreement was widely ignored until the death of the elder Mr. Kabila. Hopes for peace have jumped since the sudden change in power, and the first major withdrawal of soldiers took place this week.

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SATURDAY MARCH 03 2001  Peter Nicholls  The Times

  Mugabe rival urges Blair to back off


Morgan Tsvangirai relaxes in his garden, refusing to cocoon himself with
bodyguards, despite death threats



FROM DANIEL MCGRORY IN HARARE

Our correspondent in Harare interviews a thorn in the President's side

THE opposition leader fighting Robert Mugabe for the presidency is urging
Tony Blair and his Cabinet not to launch a new war of words with Zimbabwe's
ageing leader. He fears that it will only provoke a rush of violent attacks
on his own supporters.
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the main opposition MDC party, said: "Of course
Mr Blair is appalled at what Mugabe is doing, we all are. But I'm afraid the
more Mr Blair condemns him, the more it plays into Mugabe's hands."

He is also pleading with the Prime Minister to reconsider the decision to
pull out the British Army training team from Harare as he predicts that the
Mugabe Government could retaliate with more expulsions of churchmen,
journalists and any other critics the President seeks to remove.

Squeezing his fists together to emphasise the threat, the 47-year-old
politician beats the table and says: "Mugabe is cornered and has nothing
else to use in his election campaign except intimidation.

"But believe me, if Tony Blair or any of his ministers lay into him then
sadly Mugabe benefits."

The 77-year-old President makes no secret of his personal hatred of the
entire Labour Cabinet and delights in playing what Mr Tsvangirai calls the
"emotional race card".

"People will forget the many things Mugabe has done to them compared to the
wrongs of colonialism."

There is a barely a day when the state-controlled press does not feature a
scathing assault by one of Zanu (PF)'s ministers about the evils of Britain,
and in particular Mr Blair, which prompts Mr Tsvangirai to burst into
laughter, saying: "He should feel good that he can upset our President so
easily."

What he wants is for Britain to use its diplomatic influence in Europe and
America to turn Mr Mugabe into an international pariah and cut off funding
to his Government, as painful as it will be for his people.

The President in waiting, as his staff call him, is reluctant to say whether
he will jail Mr Mugabe if he wins the election, which is expected by the
summer.

"We know he has committed many crimes. Thirty-two of my people were killed
in the last election and it is hard to control the anger and the desire to
see him pay."

But, like Nelson Mandela in South Africa, this former trade union leader
wants his ravaged country to move forward. "Criminal trials of Mugabe and
his cronies would just reopen wounds and we have to mobilise our people to
rebuild," he said.

Whether that constitutes some sort of amnesty, he won't say but the smile
returns to his wide, handsome face as he says: "Personally he can sit in
retirement under a bush somewhere, a senile old man brooding on his loss of
power for all I care."

He refuses to resort to personal insults, despite ample provocation from Mr
Mugabe who boastfully claims that he was born to lead while Mr Tsvangirai is
only fit to be a train driver. The pair were once allies until some of Mr
Mugabe's cronies tried to throw him out of his 10th floor office window one
night in December 1997.

He was beaten unconscious and only saved by the unexpected return of his
secretary. As a reminder of what his opponent is capable of, he has kept the
bloodstained carpet.

"I used to be able to talk to him but not now. It's very sad. He is not the
same man. There has been a shocking transformation in him in the last three
years. All the honour he had as father of our new nation is washed away in
blood now."

He has lost count of the number of hospital visits he has made these past
months to see colleagues beaten senseless by men in army uniforms.

One of his fellow MDC MPs was attacked in his house earlier this week and he
and his pregnant wife had to run and hide for the night in a maize field.
The previous evening the same gang had tried to shoot him.

"You do not have to have a crystal ball to see this election coming will be
the most violent in our history. God knows how many MDC people will die just
for supporting our cause," he says.

Despite the many death threats he has received, Mr Tsvangirai refuses to
cocoon himself with bodyguards. He is sitting in the garden of his modest
villa in the northern outskirts of the capital Harare, and the only member
of staff is a teenage boy answering the front gate.

Some of his seven children wander back and forth and, pointing in their
direction, he says: "It's them I worry about, not me. I have to stand up but
I really fear this Zanu (PF) lot are capable of anything."

Stretched out in a sun lounger, there are no spin doctors or minders and he
insists on answering his own mobile telephone. Some, even within his own
party, accuse him of being too relaxed, but he says: "I can't win. If I was
to crack down on some of my MPs' remarks and surround myself with staff, I
would be accused of being another Mugabe."

To ensure that he never will be, Mr Tsvangirai vows to promote a change in
the Constitution to limit himself, and everyone else, to two terms of
office.

He is scathing at Mr Mugabe's conspicuous extravagance and, roaring with
laughter, pledges that his wife Susan will not have a credit account at
Harrods as Grace Mugabe does.

His idea of indulgence is a glass of white wine with friends as they plot
tactics. He pats his generous stomach and says that he has too much of a
fondness for food which he contrasts to the bizarre diet that the President
attributes to his health and longevity.

Mr Tsvangirai mimics the President's birthday address that revealed he has
seven different porridges for every day of the week and an egg boiled for
precisely a minute.

He admits to feeling uncomfortable at the prospect of moving into State
House, the old colonial Governor's home and now Mr Mugabe's official
residence. He admits that three years ago few Zimbabweans knew who he was,
but he is now favourite to beat President Mugabe - in a fair fight.

"Three years ago very few Zimbabweans knew who I was, and I liked that." His
broad shoulders flex at his critics' attack that his only political virtue
is that he is not Mugabe.

"We have a very clear economic programme which relies us on getting out of
debt. But if you are asking me if I want to see Mugabe go right away and let
another Zanu (PF) figure stand, then the answer is no. I want to take on
Mugabe so please Tony Blair, don't insult our Comrade President until after
I win and then you will be our first honoured guest in the free Zimbabwe."



Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd. This service is provided on Times
Newspapers' standard terms and conditions. To inquire about a licence to
reproduce material from The Times, visit the Syndication website.

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African Tears by Cathy Buckle
Cathy Buckle fears reprisals this as she begins her personal account of the nightmare gripping Zimbabwe
 
I was alone on the farm with Richard, my seven-year-old son, when I heard through the very convoluted grapevine, so typical of Africa, that our farm was about to be invaded by war veterans and squatters.
 
It was exactly a year ago - Wednesday March 1 last year. My husband Ian was out of the country on business and I had no idea what to do, whom to turn to for help.
 
In the previous fortnight, dozens of farms had been invaded by huge crowds wielding axes, pangas and hefty sticks, shouting, singing and demanding land. I could not believe that this was about to happen to me.
 
My initial reaction was to run away. How though? How do you make the decision to walk out on your life, your home, everything you have worked for, all the people that depend on you? Perhaps it was easier to try to get through it.
 
Sitting in the living room of a neighbour's house, I didn't really listen. Nobody could agree what I should do, and as the talk went round and round I sat hugging my knees, a roaring in my ears.
 
Shaking and sobbing, I couldn't bear another second of it and stumbled blindly out to my truck. Struggling with hands that had taken on a life of their own, I finally managed to fit my key in the ignition, couldn't say goodbye and drove home in a blur.
 
Eventually I managed to calm down enough to be able to face the workers. Ours is a small farm so it didn't take long for the group of seven to gather outside the gate. Their reaction to the news was shock and then disbelief.
 
"They won't come here!" George, the foreman, said.
 
"Aah, it's just talking," Emmanuel said. "There's nothing here for them."
 
"But we're not designated!" Isaya said.
 
When Ian and I had bought Stow Farm in 1990, every farm that went on the market had to be offered first to the government.
We received a certificate saying it was not interested in our little property. In 1997 the government listed 1,400 farms for seizure; again, ours was not among them.
 
Next morning I held Richard's hand as we walked up the long tree-lined driveway to wait for his lift to school. This was a walk that I usually loved, quality time with my son when we looked at tracks in the dust of creatures that had passed in the night, stopped to pick up pretty stones, inspected dew-laden spider webs.
 
Now, for me, the walk was filled with fear. I scanned for people hiding in trees, jumped at every rustle in the dry leaves. Halfway up the drive I heard someone shouting my name and turned to see Anna, the woman who works in our house, come running through the trees.
 
"They're coming today," she called out. "It's not Saturday, it's today!" Anna's son had seen a notice that said anyone wanting land should meet at the gates to Stow Farm at 8am on Thursday morning and to bring an axe, panga and identity card. I took Richard's case from his hand.
 
"Run home Rich, go on, run home to Gogo." (Shona for grandmother - his name for my mother, who had come to stay with us.)
 
"Why? What's wrong Mum? What about school?" I hadn't told him anything, not knowing how you explain to a seven-year-old that a bunch of crazed men is going to try to force you out of your house and off your land.
 
"Just go home Rich, please," I begged.
 
Richard started trudging back towards the house, looking back over his shoulder every couple of seconds, totally confused. I didn't dare send him to school because I might be barricaded in, and be unable to collect him in the afternoon.
 
All day we waited; but nothing happened. The not knowing what to expect was more stressful than anything I'd ever encountered. Just as hard was trying to explain to Richard. "There are some people that want a farm," I told him. "But because they haven't got one of their own, they've decided they want our farm."
 
"So," he said, "we'll just tell the police!" Oh God, don't I wish, I thought, knowing that the police had long since been instructed not to interfere.
 
"Yes Rich, we will. But when these people come they might make a lot of noise, you know, shout and sing and stuff, but we'll just ignore them, okay?"
 
"Okay," he said, turning back to his Lego.
 
By Friday I was sure I was ready for the invasion. I sent Richard to school and packed a small duffel bag with his most treasured toys and teddies. I locked everything of importance in my small study, the one room where I felt I would be safe if the war veterans got into the house. In there was my computer with its e-mail, my lifeline to the world. I moved the kettle and tea things in and enough cigarettes to last me a few days.
 
Saturday morning arrived and, with nerves strained to the limit, I let Mum out of the gates. She had urgent business in Marondera, our local town. Richard was off to have an exciting weekend with my sister, Wiz. I packed his little suitcases and treasures into her car.
 
I waved a tearful goodbye to them, and then everything happened so fast that I was almost caught unprepared.
 
As my sister's car bumped down the driveway, Jane, who kept the little trading store on our farm, came running through the gum trees. "They're coming, they're coming," she screamed. "Hide yourself, they're coming."
 
On her head Jane had a plastic crate with three dozen loaves from the store. She had recruited a woman to bring 10 dozen sweet buns. So now with all these things to carry, four dogs to coax into the house and the gates to lock, I reached the edge of hysteria.
 
"Run," Jane said, "I'll wait for you. Run!"
 
I ran to the house carrying the bread and buns, dogs sniffing eagerly at the food, and ran back to lock the gates. I was overcome with emotion, crying and sniffing.
 
Jane had seen people gathering outside our store with axes and pangas. She thought there were about 40. They were singing war songs.
 
My hands were shaking so badly that it seemed to take me forever to clip the padlock onto its chain around the gates. Jane left, running, and now I was completely alone. I ran to the house, with the dogs more excited every minute by all the activity.
 
I phoned my mum on her cell phone but was so traumatised that all I could say was: "Don't come home Mum, please don't try to come back."
 
I locked the kitchen door, switched on the electric fence, closed all the curtains and waited.
 
At first all I could hear was my heart pounding and the blood hitting my eardrums. Then it started: loud whistling and one voice shouting: "Hondo, hondo, hondo." (Shona for war.)
 
When the shouting stopped, the singing began. The dogs were going crazy. From one window in the pantry I could just see the gate through the hibiscus hedge. There were seven or eight figures, all wearing dark blue overalls and hats.
 
They were calling me to come out. I saw one lob a brick at the gate and watched the read-out on the control box of the electric fence turn from green to red. The alarm was about to go off.
 
The loud siren would send the dogs wild and probably the men at the gate too. Hurriedly I switched it off and retreated into my study. I locked myself in and sat on the floor with my hands over my head.
 
About 10 minutes later all went quiet. I didn't know where they were, didn't know if they were moments away from smashing the doors down. The minutes dragged by, and at last I pulled myself together and let myself out of my study.
 
It was now 11.30. I poured myself a stiff drink and sat on a stool by the phone, which was ringing incessantly with concerned neighbours and friends.
 
When the dogs started barking again I peeped through the curtains. Swarming across the fields below our house were 30 or 40 people, all carrying axes. Their singing drifted up on the wind.
 
By three in the afternoon, they'd all gone. The whole thing had lasted only four hours. Yet - although I've been chased by elephants, charged by rhinos - I have never been as terrified as I was during those four hours.
 
I later learnt what had happened.  About 40 people had been  instructed to go onto our fields and mark out plots, indicating their ownership of the land. They were told that the president was going to take the land from the whites in 30 days' time, when everyone could come and claim their new plots.
 
Richard came home after a wonderful weekend with his aunt, spoilt rotten and full of himself.
 
"So," he demanded, hands on hips, "did they come?"
 
"They came, Rich, and sort of shouted and stuff, but they've gone now."
 
That night when Richard went to bed, he took all his teddies under the blankets with him, instead of the normal one.
 
The following morning the state-run Herald newspaper announced that the government had decided to legalise the seizure of land without compensation. Within days the war veterans returned to our farm, and this time they came to stay.
 
One morning a blue tent appeared under a big old msasa tree in the field below our house. Through binoculars we could see the smoke of a campfire and five or six people huddled around it. By now Ian was home. As we headed out of the driveway, a man came running over to our truck.
 
"Hello Mr and Mrs Buckle," the man said, "I am Edward. I am the war veteran of this area and I wanted to let you know that I am the one sleeping here on your farm."
 
Edward rambled on, and eventually asked us if we could give him a lift into Marondera. He said he had to draw money to pay the men who were helping him squat on our property. Politely, Ian said we weren't going into town.
 
That night was a bad one. Edward had obviously been successful in getting his money and there was beer down at the tent. It was a full moon and the dogs barked incessantly. The shouts of drunken men seemed to go on until almost dawn.
 
When we woke the blue tent was much closer to the house. Now there was almost nowhere we could go without their watching us. They watched as we went to switch on the borehole three times a day. They watched when I went out to feed the chickens. They watched when we checked the cattle and the sheep. They watched me going up to the store. At night
I felt sure they were watching which lights went on and off and where.
 
In the third week of March, the High Court ordered war veterans and squatters off all farms within 24 hours. Eagerly we watched the response in the blue tent. If anything, the situation became worse.
 
Rumours drifted to the house that something big was going to happen at the weekend. Again we evacuated Richard to his aunt, stupidly thinking that what he didn't see wouldn't hurt him.
 
At 10am on Saturday, people began arriving. Some walked in, others came on their bicycles and more started coming in pickup trucks. Eventually there must have been 200 people in our field.
 
Thank God I've evacuated Richard, I thought, as the nausea of panic flooded my system. Ian and I watched through binoculars and soon a red car arrived bringing a portly and well-dressed man, obviously the guest speaker. From our hiding place, we could see 200 arms with clenched fists being raised, again and again; we heard the shouts: "Pamberi, pamberi."
 
I knew only too well how the hypnotic effect of slogan chanting can lead to action. I ran to the house and with shaking hands phoned the police.
 
"Please, please," I begged, "can you send someone out here?"
 
The officer said they were unable to help with any "rural" reports over the weekend.
 
Two small earth dams were now in "liberated land" and I could no longer water my livestock. The liberated land also now sported 50 head of communal cattle, pushed in to graze my fields, and included two plantations, each of 10,000 gum trees that provided poles and paper for Zimbabwe.
 
I wrote a letter to a newspaper, asking: "When will the outside world stop blaming me for being a white landowner and see this for what it really is?"
 
I went on: "Trying to explain all this to my seven-year-old son is not easy. His friends in grade 3 at the nearby government school are all, as he calls them, "Shonas". His best friend at the weekends is Linnet, the daughter of one of my workers. The two have breakfast, lunch and supper together as if they werejoined at the hip."
 
One of the two opposition members in the 150-seat parliament chose this point to reveal that more than 50% of farms bought from white farmers by the government since 1990, supposedly to give to landless peasants, had actually been given to VIPs.
There was the Speaker of parliament, a handful of permanent secretaries, governors, judges, members of parliament and high police officials.
 
It was now clear why nothing was being done to protect us. Too many high-up people had far too much to lose.
 
One morning I drove down the bumpy farm track past three groups of people who stared at us defiantly. I didn't dare stop the car and ask them what they were doing. My knuckles white around the steering wheel, I drove past them, my head filled with swear words, my mouth tightly closed.
 
We stopped at the gum plantation and I angrily brushed the tears away. The plantation was being raped: huge trees I had intended to harvest this coming winter were gone. So too were the fences that surrounded the plantation. As we drove back we went very slowly past the blue tent. A washing line of stolen fence wire had been strung between two huge wild plum trees and their clothes fluttered in the breeze. Four men stood, hands on hips, daring us to challenge them. We didn't.
 
In what can only have been an act of angry defiance, the war veterans felled an enormous tree, perhaps 50 or 60 years old, strewing its branches all over the farm road so that we could no longer go down to our own plantations unless we were brave enough to walk.
 
Twice I phoned the police in Marondera; twice they promised to come but never did. The deputy commissioner of police applied to the High Court to be absolved from implementing its order expelling squatters and invaders.
 
We were warned that a big invasion was expected on the same weekend as Richard's sports day at school. I went to the school and saw the teachers. They said Richard was already so traumatised by what was happening at home that the best thing would be to keep him away from the sports day.
 
I'm ashamed to say that I hadn't picked up that everything was not all right with Richie, because my mind was so occupied with what was going to happen on the farm.
 
The veterans had posted guards. By Friday lunchtime, instead of the normal six or seven men at the tent, there were 30 of them. Filled with panic, I started packing.
 
"What's wrong Mum?" Richie said. "Where are we going?"
 
"We're not going anywhere, poppet," I answered. "We just thought we'd move some of our special things to Aunty Wiz's house."
 
"Oh," he said, thought for a moment and then continued: "Is it in case the war vets come and try and take our house?"
 
I didn't know what to say so just hugged him and told him to go and play with Linnet. So wrapped up were we in our own panic, I had paid precious little attention to the fears of our son.
 
I didn't realise that all the horrors we saw on television - of war veterans evicting people - he saw too and understood. What a mess, I thought. Our lives were falling apart, piece by piece. Late on Friday afternoon, Richie waved goodbye gaily as he sailed around his aunt's garden on his bicycle. He phoned to tell me he was having fried eggs, spaghetti and fried potato for his
supper, far better than the peanut-butter sandwich he would have got at home.
 
That night we learnt from a neighbour that our farm was the war veterans' headquarters. Saturdays were registration days, when people who wanted land could pay for a plot that they would be given later. Things began to make sense.
 
I wrote in my journal: "I've worked so hard these last 10 years and know every inch of this farm, and the pain of seeing these people destroying it is intolerable. I feel as I imagine it must feel to be raped."
 
The next weekend I evacuated Richard to my sister's house again and for the first time he started crying. By early Saturday morning he was on the phone begging to come home. He said he didn't feel well and wanted to play with his own toys in his own bedroom.
 
Suddenly violence exploded onto the farms in the district after a legal "peace march" by more than 10,000 people in Harare was attacked by war veterans wielding clubs, bricks and sticks.
 
On the other side of Marondera, Iain Kay, a farmer whose wife had dedicated her life to helping Aids orphans, was assaulted by war veterans. He lay in our local hospital, his face covered in blood, his back zigzagged with huge welts.
 
My God, I thought, when I saw him on television, I know that hospital. I've lain in that exact room.
 
The next morning a young policeman, Constable Tinashe Chikwenya, was shot and killed by war veterans while investigating stock thefts on Iain Kay's farm. A man was arrested for the assault on Kay but was released within days. As for the murderer of Constable Chikwenya, nothing more was said.
 
The school holidays arrived. Too afraid to leave our farms for fear that invaders would move in, we now had the added worry of where our children were. The nights were very noisy with the squatters drunk and shouting.
 
One morning I happened to look out of the kitchen door and could not believe what I was seeing.
 
"Richard!" I bellowed. "Get down right now."
 
There was my son climbing the 8ft diamond-mesh security fence. I raced outside as he began reversing down the fence and by the time I reached him we were both in tears.
 
"What are you doing Rich? What do you think you are doing?"
 
"I just want to go to the store Mum," he sobbed. "I just want to go and see my friends."
 
"Can you see those people at the tent, Rich? Can you see them? They are bad men, Rich. Do you understand me?"
 
As his pale little face whitened and his eyes widened, I went on:
"If you go up to the store by yourself, then I can't see you, can't see what's going on. You just can't go there by yourself, okay?"
 
Rich nodded quietly and I hugged him as we both looked down the field at that foul blue tent. I unlocked the gate Richard had been trying to climb over and we went up to the store together.
 
Richard got his drink and crisps and we gathered up his friends and brought them back to play in the safety of the farm garden. In minutes the kids were off, racing around with a football, laughing and shouting, all tension defused.
 
That night when I tucked Richard in and we prepared for our ritual story, he had piled up all his soft toys around his pillow.
 
"They're scared Mum," he said.
 
"What are they scared of Rich? There's nothing to be scared of. We're here and the dogs are all on guard outside, and Arthur [our night guard] is going round and the electric fence is on."
 
Rich put his thumb in his mouth and hugged his favourite lion closer to him. I stroked his white curls and found our favourite Noddy book, the one where Mr Plod the policeman is being particularly officious about a basket of missing mushrooms. Don't I wish, I thought, as I read the story and we giggled at the policeman's antics.
 
All the workers were staying strong, particularly Jane, the woman who ran the store. She had to put up with the squatters' intimidation every day. Three stood in the store and just stared at her - sometimes for two to three hours at a time. She broke out in a nervous rash all over her neck and face but remained cheerful and determined.
 
Parliament passed a constitutional amendment enabling the government to acquire land without compensation. Nonetheless, I was briefly ecstatic when a black High Court judge ordered the police to get on with the job of removing squatters from farms - until Mugabe excused them from dealing with "the little matter of trespass". Yet again we were alone.
 
Every morning now the squatters herded their cattle onto our fields, forcing us to move our own out of their way. A wooden beer hall cum tuck shop was erected directly behind our borehole. Livid, I picked up a hefty stick and called the workers together.
 
"Come on," I said, "let's go and knock that abomination down."
 
"Oh no," George replied, "they will not allow us."
 
"I don't care any more George. For God's sake, the hut is right by our only supply of water. It's right by Emmanuel's house. This is insane. I've had enough. Come on."
 
When nobody moved I felt angry tears stinging my eyes and took a step towards the workers. "Well if you won't come, I'll go by myself."
 
Still nobody moved and I threw my stick furiously against the fence. Someone said I should think about what had happened to Iain Kay.
 
Next day the war veterans and squatters began moulding bricks. They were there to stay.
 
On April 15, three days before Zimbabwe's 20th anniversary of independence, a farmer called David Stevens was murdered by war veterans near Marondera. Five farmers who had been abducted and beaten while trying to rescue him began arriving in our little town hospital, bloodied, bruised and barely able to walk. We were fewer than eight miles away.
 
Next day 46 farmers and their families evacuated their homes. Those of us on the west of the town checked our windows, doors and padlocks, jumped at every sound.
 
On independence day, I watched Mugabe make a speech full of the same old rhetoric on television, while my son and Brian, his black friend, tipped Lego all over the house and giggled as they played. I wondered if this was the real Zimbabwe in my lounge, or if it was the 100-plus war veterans in the field below our house.
 
A few days later, I e-mailed to friends: "Ian and I sat up last night talking about how we were going to manage to start again. In our middle age we were just beginning to think that we had the formula right and were set up for the future. We had finally paid off all our debts, the property was ours and the livestock worth a million-plus. God knows where we will go and the thought of again having nothing - no home, no assets and no security - is totally depressing."
 
As Easter approached, the violence moved closer. Gangs of 200 armed thugs went on the rampage. There were horrific beatings and atrocities in workers' compounds. Soon there were only a couple of farms between them and us.
 
Our workers had heard talk that Easter Sunday was when whites were going to be killed en masse. On Saturday I told our night guard to keep a special watch.
 
I woke at 4am to hear Richie moving around. I went through to his bedroom. He was soaked. My son had wet his bed, something that he hadn't done for four years.
 
"I'm sorry Mum, I'm sorry Mum," he repeated again and again as he stood looking down.
 
Taking him in my arms, I held him tightly and stroked his curly head. "What happened Rich?" I asked quietly.
 
"I was too scared to go to the bathroom, Mum. I'm sorry."
 
Lowering my head so that my son wouldn't see my tears, I gently stripped off his pyjamas and got some dry ones out of the cupboard. We changed his bed together and then I climbed in next to him.
 
As Richard lay snuggled in my arms with a gallery of teddies looking on, I felt so ashamed and closed my eyes so that he wouldn't see my pain. What was I thinking of, as a parent, a mother, allowing my son to keep living like this?
 
© Catherine Buckle 2001
Extracted from African Tears by Catherine Buckle to be
published by Covos Day Books, South Africa, on April 6, with
UK distribution in June by Verulam Publishing at £12.95.
Copies can be ordered for £10.95 from The Sunday Times
Books Direct on 0870 165 8585; www.sundaytimesdirect.co.uk
 
 
'I am white. I am not a farmer, I am not a landowner...'
 Extracts from an article written by Pauline Henson (Cathy  Buckle’s mother)
for The Daily News (Zimbabwe) 11 April  2000
 
 …I am white. I am not a farmer, I am not a landowner unless  you count one third of an acre in the medium density suburb  where I have chosen to make my home. My friends and neighbours are all black, the students I teach are all black, the  colleagues I work with are all black, my boss is black.
 
 Yes, my skin is white and sometimes I wished it were otherwise but as every day passes and more racist abuse is  piled upon people of my colour, I find myself getting angrier and angrier. I cannot speak for all other whites but I know that for  myself and my family, all of whom were born here in Zimbabwe, we have nothing to be ashamed of and indeed much to be proud of.
 
 In our own way we fought against the Smith regime with its evil policies of racial superiority and domination; as a lawyer my first husband fought in the courts to defend men who have since risen to the very top of Zanu PF; my second husband and  all his family were similarly closely associated with black liberation.
 
 Many of today’s cabinet ministers received their prison education because of the family’s total commitment to the  concept of a free Zimbabwe. A training center founded by my second husband and built on land once reserved for “whites  only” is still in operation today. I did my bit too, through the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace. In its early days, I
 was myself responsible for helping write some of the books and pamphlets that were smuggled out of the country to inform the rest of the world about what was happening inside Rhodesia.
 
 In such an atmosphere of passionate belief in justice and truth, of endless interchange and discussion between the stream of  black and white visitors to the family home, my children grew up … and who is to tell me they are not Zimbabweans?
 
 One of those children [Cathy] went to the School of Social Work as the only white student. She taught in the newly  integrated schools of independent Zimbabwe as a Careers’ Guidance counselor to black, brown and white teenagers. She  worked as a librarian in the Children’s Library in Harare where she helped children, black, brown and white to love books and
 reading … and is she not a Zimbabwean?
 
 Now she owns a farm that she and her husband bought in 1990 and paid for over the next seven years of incredible hardships.
 It’s a poor place, fit only for grazing cattle and sheep. There are no tractors, nor irrigation, no heavy machines because all the  spare cash went to meet the massive repayments for the farm.
 
 The meat and milk produced from that farm help to feed the nation. A farm store caters for the local villages and yet in three  short weeks that the farm has been “occupied” she and her husband have watched helplessly as strangers have “liberated”  the land, planted the Zimbabwean flag and posted guards at the gates of this newly “liberated” land so that she cannot even  drive down her own farm or water her cattle at the dam which is now in “liberated” territory.
 
 Through all this unbelievable psychological stress and anguish my daughter and her husband have been powerless. The Police have done nothing to protect them or their rights as citizens in the land of their birth.
 
 … And when our blood mingles with the soil of this beloved land, will it matter then whether we were black or white or brown or mixed race?
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