The ZIMBABWE Situation Our thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe
- may peace, truth and justice prevail.

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From: JAG
To: justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
Sent: 08 September 2002 15:50
 
Contact Jenni Williams on:

    Mobile (+263) 91 300456 or 11213 885
    or email jennipr@mweb.co.zw
    or Fax (+2639) 63978 or (+2634) 703829
    Office email prnews@mweb.co.zw

Dear All,

I am forwarding this letter as have not seen it circulated widely. It is a
good sample of what should be presented to an evicting party when they
attempt to evict farmers!!!!

Jenni Williams

KAROI FARMERS ASSOCIATION

6th SEPTEMBER 2002

OFFICER IN CHARGE
ZIMBABWE REPUBLIC POLICE KAROI
P O BOX 60
KAROI

Dear Sir,

RE: THREATENED EVICTION OF FARMERS THIS COMING SUNDAY 8 SEPTEMBER 2002
 
We represent the farmers who have received visits from your subordinates on Friday 6th September 2002, threatening them and ordering them to vacate their farms by midday on Sunday the 8th September 2002. We are advised by our lawyers that our members should inform the various Police details that any such action would be illegal because of orders pertained in the High Court of Zimbabwe setting aside the Section 8 orders issued against our members.
 
As you are aware, Section 9 of the Land Acquisition Act as amended, only comes into force when a valid Section 8 order is served on the farmer concerned. In the absence of a valid Section 8 order, the farmer is entitled to remain on his property and to continue farming. In any event, we would point out to you that even if there is a valid section 8 in place, only a duly constituted court can issue an order for the eviction of a farmer in terms of Section 9 of the Land Acquisition Act.
 
In the circumstances, any police officer or any other person for that matter, who attempts to evict any of our members, that action will be illegal.
 
We are instructed to advise you as we hereby do, that if any police officer is involved in such illegal evictions this weekend, we will sue you and the various police officers involved for damages in your personal capacity. You will appreciate that all police officers are bound in terms of the constitution to honour the constitution of Zimbabwe and its laws, and if you fail to do so you will be acting beyond the scope of your employment and accordingly you will be held personally liable. We stress that any such action for damages will include a claim for any consequential loss sustained by our members including loss of property.
 
Numerous farmers have had their Section 8 orders set aside and they have the relevant high court orders which confirm our contention with the Section 8 orders.
 
Some farmers have not had their Section 8's set aside by the High Court. We should stress, however to you, that even in respect of these contraventions only a court has lawful authority to issue eviction orders and any action taken by the police to evict these farmers will be equally illegal.
 
Yours faithfully,

KAROI FARMERS ASSOCIATION

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EMERGENCY APPEAL

 

As the last of Zimbabwe’s white farmers and their workforce wait to be evicted from their farms, countless wild and domestic animals continue to be brutally killed, maimed and tortured. For wildlife, in the country’s south-eastern conservancies of Bubiana, Save and Chiredzi, the death toll is worse than the 1992 drought which utterly devastated wildlife populations. Today, in Bubiana it is thought that 40 rhino have been lost to poachers’ snares, and a snared calf, unable to escape, was found to have burnt to death in one of the poachers’ fires which swept through the conservancy killing everything in its path. Along with vast numbers of plains game, elephant and the critically endangered African Wild Dog have also fallen victim to the poacher’s snares. ‘I removed a snare from a female that had actually bitten off the lower half of her rear leg to try and break free,’ reports Save’s conservator.  It is a perilous position for those attempting to fight this massacre. Scouts are intimidated and attacked regularly – one had the top of his skull sliced off with an axe whilst another had deep cuts from machete blows to his back. Another was killed by a bow and arrow.

 

Funds to sustain these brave men are running low. To help the scouts and preserve the little that is left of Zimbabwe’s wildlife, the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation’s   Zimbabwe Appeal asks for your help. All donations will go towards funding and equipping the scouts on the conservancies. Without donor help it is feared no one will be left to halt what is becoming the country’s worst man-made disaster.

Current Situation

 

At 840,000 acres Save Valley in Zimbabwe is one of Africa's largest conservancies. It supports about 1,200 elephant and has one of the most successful black rhino breeding programmes in Africa. Since the invasions, about 25% of the conservancy has been almost fully occupied by settlers. Over the two years 1,089 animals have been recovered dead from the snares (including elephant, wild dog, cheetah, leopard, and rhino). The numbers of recorded animals killed in no way reflects the true horror of the extent of the killing as it only accounts for the animals that were found by the patrols. Many, many more will have escaped detection as ‘no go’ areas, where the scouts have been forbidden access by the ‘war veterans’, have grown into poaching playgrounds. In other areas there simply aren’t the funds to support anti-poaching patrols and it has become a free for all. Some conservancies feel they now have, at most, two months left before their wildlife is annihilated completely.

 

A more significant indication of the extent of the poaching rests with the number of snares recovered. Since last August the number of snares found on Save equated to about 40 kilometres of wire, but more than 80 kilometres of fencing has been destroyed. This suggests that a potential 427,000 snares have been made and only 27,000 have been recovered. This minefield of cable snares, scattered throughout the conservancies, act by slowly strangling, and starving, their victims to death. In addition to snaring, the poachers use dogs to run the animals down, where they are then speared or axed to death.

 

On Bubiana an estimated 30,000 animals have been killed in the past 18 months. Many have had only their limbs cut off for the poacher’s pot leaving the rest of the carcass to wastefully rot.

 

As well as the loss of animals, the destruction of habitat has been severe. Bubiana has lost an estimated 240,000 trees in the clearing of land for subsistence plots whilst 50% of Chiredzi’s 270,000 acres have been destroyed. Rob Style, Chiredzi’s Vice Chairman, reports, ‘The worst thing is the Mopane forests, which take years and years to regenerate, are being hammered really hard. Big chunks of forest are being cut down and burnt, opening up the bush, and exposing vast tracts of soil to erosion. A whole ecosystem is being destroyed.’

 

A 5,000 hectare property on Chiredzi has been entirely burnt out. Says Theresa Warth, ‘It all went up in a day and they’re still burning what’s left now. Burnt land is easier to poach than thick bush. It enables the poacher to hunt with dogs as the animals are in clear view. The animals are rapidly losing condition as there is no graze or browse for them now and hundreds of smaller animals have also been killed in the fires.’ Recently Theresa found a warthog that had been stabbed 30 times in the face as the poachers had tried to extract it from its burrow. It was a pregnant female and the poachers had removed the front and back leg, leaving the rest to rot. ‘They’re doing so much damage. What’s happening is worse than a drought as it’s not selective, the strong are being taken out as well as the weak.’ 

 

The Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force reports that in the Midlands Conservancy area, 4 of the game ranchers have lost 80% of their wildlife. On land that has been officially ‘fast-tracked’, there is no game left at all. It is significant that game is being shot not snared in these areas and reports suggest the police and senior war veterans are behind the poaching. This highly organised crime has resulted in an influx of bush meat being sold in Bulawayo and surrounding towns.

 

For the rhino, only recently brought back from the brink of extinction, this lawless, uncontrolled epidemic is especially threatening.  Private farms and conservancies protect 70% of the national total of rhinos which are all state owned. A government that once granted the rhino’s custodianship to the conservancies is now encouraging invasions into their habitat and turning a blind eye to a crime that is destroying them. After South Africa, Bubiana has the second biggest rhino population in the world. Here, where a quarter of Zimbabwe’s 400 rhino live, 50% are thought to have been killed. The most recent to have been found had been snared and then stabbed to death. Another southern conservancy, Lynwood Ranching, has found 7 of its 36 black rhino in snares. In Matusadona National Park two rhino were poisoned with pesticide and one had its horn hacked off.

 

With this evidence it’s not surprising to hear reports that there has been an influx of rhino products into the Orient, and the suggested source is Zimbabwe.

 

Rhino are not the only protected species to be threatened. Since the elections, at least 33 elephant have been poached (shot not snared) in the Kariba area, and 65 anti-personnel mines have been uplifted from game paths. It seems unbelievable that in this chaos, Zimbabwe are proposing that the elephant be down-listed by CITES so that the country can start trading in ivory and other elephant parts.

 

If any animals survive this current holocaust it will be because of the tenacity and bravery of the scouts on the afflicted conservancies. A special mention needs to be made for them as their life is becoming increasingly difficult and morale is low. Every day they face severe mental and physical abuse from gangs of poachers.

 

On Save a scout received serious ‘panga’ (machete) wounds across his back from a ‘war vet’ calling himself ‘Killer’. Another had the top of his skull sliced off with an axe. Another was recently killed by a bow and arrow. A Chiredzi scout reports, ‘If we arrest one of the poachers in the area, they come in bulk to fight against us. They have axes, big knives and bows and arrows. I was beaten by twelve of the poachers and my eardrums were perforated. I’m still having pains in my chest and back.’ The man responsible for these beatings twice failed to appear in court, and the hearing was then postponed for a year – he is still free and has never been tried!

 

Meanwhile conservancy owners are facing the daily fear that one day their diminishing resources will run dry and they will no longer be able to pay for scouts to patrol. For many this has already happened. Clem Coetsee has been involved in wildlife conservation in Zimbabwe for 40 years. After 18 months of pressure and intimidation, he abandoned his property on Chiredzi. On this property alone, the cost of the damage to fencing amounts to US$46,000. ‘They bring cattle in and have burnt and chopped down trees. They take the wood out into the communal land for firewood. Whatever poles they can get and our fencing all goes into building homes on the communal land.  They’ve destroyed the borehole and pump. I have a dam with a 4 kilometre pipeline which they’re also digging up and stealing. There’s nothing left there, not even a duiker.’ With all his assets gone, Coetsee can no longer afford to pay for anti-poaching patrols. Poaching is so bad that in the rocky hills even the hyrax have been slaughtered – one poacher was found with a pile of twenty-two.

 

The longer this madness is allowed to continue, the more likely it will be that these wildlife saviours will be forced to watch the animals they’ve fought to protect, fall to the poacher’s knife.

 

From the standpoint of Zimbabwe’s wildlife, the country is fast approaching the point of no return. The country is dying a rapid death as it destroys the very means it has to shape a productive and sustainable economic future. Whilst it’s understandable that a country on the brink of starvation should turn to every means it can to survive, it is incomprehensible that the government has so little control over its own economic assets, appearing to favour short-term mass slaughter over long-term sustainable growth.

 

Zimbabwe’s extraordinary natural environment has to be regarded as a gift from God. To disrespect and mistreat this gift is to kill the very foundation on which life grows. Everyone in Zimbabwe will be the poorer for this negligence.

 

Digby Nesbitt, Chiredzi’s Chairman put it very succinctly when he said, ‘Every month it costs me Z$250,000 to pay my game scouts – how long can we keep this going whilst they’re destroying it around you at a rate you can’t imagine? Sooner or later, financially it’s going to cripple you. It’s a lose-lose situation. Nobody’s going to gain from it. The whole thing has been motivated by a government trying to stay in power, it doesn’t matter if the economy collapses or people starve, it’s just a case of staying in power at any cost. It’s a crisis situation and we need immediate action, the longer we wait the more animals are being killed and the less likely it’ll be that we can ever make use of wildlife in this country’s economy. All we want to do is preserve the little bit that’s left.’

 

We have to be mindful that it’s not only the government that has a duty to perform. I believe that as individuals we all have a responsibility to do what we can to prevent this country’s suicide. To be aware of what is happening and silently utter our dismay, is not enough. It’s wrong to believe we have no power to make a difference – let us all take responsibility for what is happening and make our indignation and outrage heard.

 

Write to: Minister Francis Nhema, Ministry of Environment and Tourism, P.O.Box CY286, Causeway, Harare, Zimbabwe.

 

If you would like to make a contribution to help sustain and increase the number of scouts protecting wildlife on the conservancies, please see details on the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation website (www.davidshepherd.org) or you can contribute:

 

By post:  with a cheque payable to DSWF Zimbabwe Appeal - sent to 61
Smithbrook Kilns, Cranleigh, Surrey, GU6 8JJ, England


or
By phone: (+44 1483 272323) with credit card details and specifiying that it is
for the DSWF Zimbabwe Appeal.

 

N.B. Before making a donation you should be aware that some of the conservancies have been almost entirely funded by hunting operations, and they will continue to be so once a situation of normality has returned. Save in particular relies on hunting to sustain the conservancy as their conservator explains, ‘The hunting business ensures that the conservation project can continue to survive and that the conservancy remains intact in its biodiversity.’ Whilst I personally do not support hunting, I do believe that if we don’t do all that we can to protect what is left in the conservancies, there will be no wildlife left in this corner of the country and no means for economic development for local communities - be it through hunting or photographic safaris.

 

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Sunday Times (SA)

Farm evictions pick up speed as Mugabe returns home


Sunday Times Foreign Desk

A triumphant President Robert Mugabe returned to Zimbabwe from his warm
reception at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg
this week just as police began preparing to evict yet more farmers from the
country's grain belt.

According to farmers' groups, police gave farmers served with eviction
notices in Matabeland, Mashonaland West - the country's richest
grain-producing area - and Mashonaland Central until 2pm today to leave with
all their possessions.


The farmers include single property owners - belying Mugabe's claim that
only those with more than one farm would be targeted.


The police notices came just as the country's bakers warned of worsening
bread shortages in urban areas and as Mugabe reversed a decision to ban the
import of genetically modified food aid in an effort to avert the worst
famine in the country's history.


In a rare interview with journalists after his return from Johannesburg,
Mugabe said it was "absolute nonsense" that the seizure of farms had
contributed to the hunger crisis threatening half of all Zimbabweans.


"If anything," he was quoted as saying, "it's the only way you can empower
people to produce, not just for subsistence, but to enable them to enjoy
life and to enable the country to continue to export maize."


Meanwhile, the South African business community has denounced Mugabe's
economic mismanagement, and warned that the crisis could spell disaster for
the region .


In a statement this week, the SA Chamber of Business said: "We believe the
African Union, in conjunction with the Southern African Development
Community, should urgently assess the Zimbabwean situation and come up with
a pragmatic and sustainable plan to deal with the situation there."


And as relief organisations stepped up food programmes, Zimbabwe's
opposition Movement for Democratic Change warned of "political interference"
in the distribution of food aid , with MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai saying
authorities had impounded 30 tons of maize bought from South Africa.
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Suspend 'degenerative' Mugabe, says Clarke

September 06 2002 at 09:56PM
The Argus/Weekend Argus

By Michael Morris

South Africa's efforts to cajole tyrannical neighbour Robert Mugabe into reforming his ways have been "distinctly unproductive", says forthright New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clarke.

Instead, Clarke believes Mugabe has gone from bad to worse.

Zimbabwe, she argues, should be suspended from the Commonwealth.

She made her views clear at a media briefing at the University of Cape Town on Friday after delivering an address on economic and political challenges facing her country.

'In these three areas, Zimbabwe is very seriously in breach'
Clarke's brief visit to Cape Town follows her attendance at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg.

She acknowledged that South Africa, with Nigeria, "has tried to have a process of engaging with Mugabe to try to get reconciliation process going between him and the opposition". This followed a compromise at the Commonwealth Summit earlier this year.

But she added: "It is fair to say that that process has been distinctly unproductive and I think it should be said - and I will say it - that Robert Mugabe has gone to greater excesses since. It remains a concern that the best efforts of South Africa and Nigeria have not brought the kind of change needed to bring Zimbabwe to compliance with Commonwealth principles."

New Zealand's outspoken Labour prime minister cut her political teeth in the service of 1960s left-wing activism which, with growing intensity, was directed at apartheid South Africa.

She and other cabinet colleagues such as Foreign Minister Phil Goff, who visited South Africa earlier this year, celebrated Mugabe's 1980 victory as a triumph of democracy over oppression.

New Zealand had long 'been a voice for Zimbabwe's suspension from the Commonwealth'
But when the Zanu-PF leader became oppressive himself, they made no bones about it.

Clarke said Mugabe's intransigence "gives the Commonwealth some leverage to move on suspension".

New Zealand, she said, had long "been a voice for Zimbabwe's suspension from the Commonwealth".

"From the South Pacific perspective, we have some experience. Fiji has been suspended twice - following the 1987 coup, which led to a process to help it get back on a constitutional track and, two years ago, when there was another coup. Again, there was a process to assist the situation there."

On the basis of this experience, and the Commonwealth's own guidelines, suspension should be the course of action where there was a breakdown in three key areas: rule of law, constitutional democratic government and human rights, she said.

"In these three areas, Zimbabwe is very seriously in breach," she said.

It is understood that her private view is that South Africa has a great deal of influence - but is not using it to the full.

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Hunger takes its toll on students at Zimbabwean school 
 
ASSOCIATED PRESS
 
NHWALI, Zimbabwe, Sept. 8 — As the girls talk about their hunger, they giggle nervously, as girls often do when they talk about themselves. Their grades have plummeted. They fall asleep in class from exhaustion. Often, when they have nothing at all to eat, they don't even bother coming to school.

       ''Sometimes it's better to stay home than to come and collapse here,'' said Litsoanelo Moyo, a 19-year-old student at Nhwali secondary school.
       Zimbabwe's worst food crisis in a decade has begun to take its toll in places like Nhwali, a village 430 miles southwest of Harare.
       Many now eat only one small meal a day. The poorest are forced to beg for a handful of corn meal from their neighbors. Child malnutrition has more than doubled to 8 percent.
       And teachers and students at the local schools worry about the damage this is doing to the education system.
       At the beginning of the year, the school enrolled 450 students. More than 50 have dropped out for three reasons: Their families stole across the border to South Africa, they were forced to help scavenge for food or their parents could no longer afford the $2 in school fees, said Soneni Dube, the deputy headmaster.
       Of the remaining students, about 50 are absent on any given day, up from one or two in normal times. Those that come are often too hungry to study.
       One girl fainted in the middle of a class. Teachers gave her some food, but she dropped out a few days later.
       This weekend, the schoolgirls talked of their dreams — of being a nurse, a journalist, a flight attendant. But they were more fixated on their hunger.
       ''I used to be fat,'' laughs Itumeleng Mdlongwa, a petite 17-year-old girl.
       It is noon on a weekend day and they have walked between one and six miles to school to hold a study group on the history of Europe's colonization of Africa. Not one of them has anything more in her stomach than black tea.
       The girls used to eat two hearty meals a day of meat, corn mash and vegetables and a small lunch. Now, when they are lucky, they get two small meals of corn mash and the rabe or spinach they grow in small gardens in their yards. When the government trucks selling corn don't come for a while — and they haven't been to Nhwali for months — they get only one meal, sometimes just vegetables.
       Their grades have plunged.
       Nontokoza Moyo, 16, passed six subjects last term. Now she is only passing three.
       ''When I'm reading, I sleep,'' she said. ''We don't normally concentrate much these days.''
       Dube is worried that his teachers are at risk of falling through the cracks in the shaky food delivery system. They are too wealthy to get food aid and are not official residents of any of the cluster of nearby villages, so never make it onto the lists to buy scarce government grain.
       ''Even if we have the money, we don't have the grain to buy,'' he said. ''Morale is very low. Very, very low.''
       An estimated 6 million of Zimbabwe's 12.5 million people are threatened by a hunger crisis caused by a terrible drought and the government's chaotic land reform program, which has badly wounded its agriculture-based economy, according to the World Food Program.
       Nearly 7 million people in five other countries in southern Africa are also at risk of starvation.
       WFP head James Morris, who is touring the region to inspect the crisis, appealed Friday for donor nations to increase their contributions to help head off a potential disaster in the region.
       The agency, which is currently delivering 11,000 tons a month to Zimbabweans, hopes to increase that to 60,000 tons. They predict the situation will get much worse in the coming months.
       Meanwhile, human rights groups accuse the government, which sells corn at the fixed price of less than $1 for an 110-pound bag, of refusing to sell grain to opposition supporters and making only sporadic deliveries to opposition strongholds.
       The government denies its land reform policies are to blame for food shortages, saying drought is the sole cause. It also denies allegations that it is denying the opposition food.
       When Morris arrived in Nhwali to inspect the distribution of WFP corn, an unprecedented seven government trucks filled with bags of corn for sale rolled up, the first time since July that even one truck has arrived to feed the 9,000 people in the area, deep in opposition territory.
       Janet Siziba, a 73-year-old widow, waits in line with money she has borrowed from a neighbor to buy corn to feed herself, her grandson, his wife and their two children.
       She and her grandson used to feed the family off the harvest from their tiny field and the earnings they made by making bricks for neighbors. But their field produced nothing this year, and no one has money to pay them for piecework.
       So she begs door to door for small handfuls of grain and watches fearfully as her 1- and 4-year-old great grandchildren grow weaker.
       Siziba says she has not even bothered to plow her tiny field for the upcoming planting season, for one central reason: ''Where will I get the money to get the seed?''
 
 
 © 2002 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. 
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News24

Deadline expires; no new arrests

Stella Mapenzauswa

Harare - A new deadline for Zimbabwe's white farmers to quit their
properties and make way for landless blacks expired on Sunday with no news
of fresh arrests.

John Worswick, vice chairperson of farm lobby group Justice for Agriculture,
said some farmers had hurriedly left their land as the 12:00 GMT deadline
approached, but would soon return.

"I'm sure a lot of them will be going back to their farms tomorrow. We also
had a lot of farmers on their properties who haven't been arrested,"
Worswick said.

"The threat was very real, it was there... but it hasn't happened. We are
looking at a situation of a damp squib, it was an empty threat if you like,"
he added.

President Robert Mugabe has ordered 2 900 commercial farmers to quit their
land without compensation under a controversial programme to seize
white-owned farms and hand them over to landless blacks.

JAG says some 2 500 farmers have defied the initial eviction orders. Police
have charged more than 300 defiant farmers.

Earlier, JAG spokesperson Jenni Williams said the latest order for white
farmers to leave their land on Sunday appeared to be unofficial and urged
farmers to defy it.

"This is not an official deadline. It's a deadline that District
Administrators and police have seemed to talk about, but we've had no
government ministers actually say this is a specific deadline," Williams
said.

District administrators and police had been visiting white commercial
farms - mainly in the Mashonaland West province - warning them that if they
were not off their land by 12:00 GMT on Sunday they would be arrested, she
said.

Police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena said he was not aware of the Sunday
deadline, but said police were carrying out arrests relating to an initial
August 8 government deadline.

"It's an ongoing exercise as far as we are concerned," he said, without
giving any details on new arrests.

On Wednesday, Mugabe told white farmers to cooperate over the reforms, leave
the country or face jail.

"Those (who are defiant) do not deserve to be in Zimbabwe and we shall take
steps to ensure that they are not entitled to our land," Mugabe told
supporters who turned out to welcome him home from the Earth Summit in
Johannesburg.

JAG urges farmers to stay

A separate statement by JAG late on Saturday said scores of farmers affected
by the eviction orders have had the notices overturned by the High Court.

"We call on farmers who have the legal right to remain on their land to
stand firm against this latest threat to commercial agriculture, and we call
upon the regional and international community to recognise the plight of
farmers and farm workers," it said.

Zimbabwe has been in crisis since pro-government militants led by veterans
of the 1970s liberation war began invading white-owned farms in early 2000.

Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, says his land
drive is aimed at correcting colonial injustice, which left 70 percent of
the country's best land in the hands of white farmers.

Aid agencies say nearly half the country's 13 million people need food aid
this year, a result of a wider food crisis in six drought-stricken southern
African countries which they say has been exacerbated by Mugabe's land
reforms.

Mugabe's government says the drought alone is to blame for the food
shortages.

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Ananova:

      Zimbabwe farmers defiant as 'get out' deadline expires

The deadline for Zimbabwe's white farmers to leave their land has expired,
amid signs some of them are prepared to continue to defy President Robert
Mugabe's orders.

Official sources said there were no immediate signs of any arrests having
been made.

But earlier this week, Mugabe warned that he would crack down on those white
farmers who still refused to quit. "Time is not on their side," he said,
adding a further warning that the government would act against those who
disobeyed.

He had claimed that half the 2,900 farmers remained defiant, and said they
should cooperate with the reforms, and leave the country or go to prison.

Meanwhile, the British Foreign Office's standard line is that there was a
need for land reform but that it must be carried out on the basis of the
rule of law and sound economics.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has pointed out that the seized land is not
being handed over to genuine black farmers but to Mugabe's henchmen and
relatives.

The Zimbabwe government says it is redressing what it describes as "colonial
imbalances" and returning the land to impoverished blacks.


Story filed: 20:24 Sunday 8th September 2002
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ABC Australia

Zimbabwe farmers barred from removing possessions

At least six white farmers in Zimbabwe have reported problems ahead of a new
deadline for them to leave their farms by noon Sunday (10:00 GMT), farming
crisis group Justice for Agriculture (JAG) said.

JAG said farmers in several provinces had been told they must leave their
farms regardless of whether eviction notices served by the Government were
valid.

JAG vice chairman John Worswick said a farmer in Doma, 160 kilometres
northwest of Harare, was leaving his farm ahead of Sunday's deadline "when a
Zimbabwe National Army major in camouflage kit and around 10 people incited
the farm labour and said the property belonged to him".

He ordered the property the farmer was removing to be put back.

Mr Worswick said that in the Tengwe farming area, also in northwestern
Zimbabwe, farmer Craig Werrett of Sapi Valley farm has been barricaded
inside his house by farm workers incited by outsiders.

He said eight farmers who went to help him were stoned by an angry mob, and
one of them was assaulted.

Both of the farmers had challenged their eviction orders.

Another four white farmers were briefly arrested Saturday in Bindura, north
of Harare, allegedly for trying to remove property, JAG said.

The deadline comes exactly one month after around 2,900 of the country's
4,500 farmers who had been served with eviction orders were supposed to
leave their land to make way for new black farmers under a controversial
land reform program.

More than 70 white farmers have had their eviction notices declared invalid.
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Friday, 6 September, 2002, 11:49 GMT 12:49 UK
Land offer to Zimbabwe's whites
 
White Zimbabwean farmers suffering from President Mugabe's policy of land seizure have been offered a lifeline by a fellow African country, the Central African Republic.

Not only would the farmers be given a safe haven but their presence would help the Central African Republic develop and improve its agriculture, the government says.

Prime Minister Martin Ziguele told Anita McNaught on BBC's HARDtalk: "We will offer them land."

"My country has no problem with land.

"We are a country with 3.5 million inhabitants on 624,000 square kilometres. It's a very big country.

"For each kilometre of land we have less than one inhabitant. So we have land."

Agricultural potential

The Central African Republic is rich in natural resources including unspoilt rainforest and enjoys high levels of rainfall.


We are ready to host white people from Zimbabwe because we want to improve agriculture

Martin Ziguele
But it remains one of the least developed countries on the continent.

Mr Ziguele said that exploiting the rainfall to achieve clean drinking water and good irrigation, along with managing sustainable development of the forests, were the two most important issues to be addressed in the country.

He stressed that he and President Ange-Felix Patasse recognised that agriculture was key to improving the situation.

He said: "My President phoned me here yesterday and told me to tell everyone I meet that we are ready to host people... white people coming from Zimbabwe because we want to improve agriculture.

Zimbabwean turmoil

 

 
White Zimbabwean farmers are gradually being stripped of their homes and livelihoods, and some have even been killed, as part of President Mugabe's plan to redistribute land to the blacks.

Although Mugabe has been widely condemned by the international community he has shown no sign of relaxing his campaign.

Prime Minister Ziguele said: "What is happening in Zimbabwe is not a very good example of what can be done in the sense of harmony between communities in a country."


It is important is to help Zimbabwean society find a solution around problems of land

Martin Ziguele
He condemned the situation, adding: "I don't agree with the way the problem is explained or solved."

He also said that the problem seemed "more emotional than rational".

"I think what is important is to help all components of Zimbabwean society to find a solution around problems of land."

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The Times

September 08, 2002

Namibia joins anti-white crusade

RW Johnson, Windhoek



NAMIBIA'S President Sam Nujoma, who stunned delegates to the Earth Summit in
Johannesburg last week with his unbridled attack on Tony Blair and all-out
support for Robert Mugabe, seems bent on repeating the Zimbabwean leader's
anti-white and anti-farmer crusade in his own country.
In the past fortnight Nujoma, 73, has sacked Hage Geingob, a relative
moderate who has been prime minister since independence and - having
previously altered the constitution to allow himself a third term -is
encouraging activists of his ruling South West African People's Organisation
(Swapo) to nominate him for a fourth term.

Nujoma has ordered the expropriation of 192 farms belonging to non-resident
foreigners, but his furious anti-white rhetoric suggests this is just a
first step. He has dismissed plans for land reform from Namibia's 4,000
commercial farmers, who have offered to sell hundreds of farms, and refuses
to rule out Zimbabwe-style land invasions. The 80,000 whites in a country of
1.8m are bracing themselves for a convulsion of "radicalisation".

Nujoma has always been in awe of the far-better-educated Mugabe - for the
Namibian leader, a former shepherd, office cleaner and tea boy, is one of
the least educated men ever to head a state.

What he lacked in learning, he has made up for in determination: he founded
the Ovamboland People's Organisation in 1959 and became its president, a
post he continued to hold when it changed its name to Swapo. He has held
power in his party for 43 years.

Swapo's struggle for independence from South Africa was conducted by
ceaseless diplomacy at the United Nations and by a guerrilla war waged from
bases inside Angola.

By the time Nujoma became president in 1990, however, it had become clear
that he also had a great deal of blood on his hands. Some 2,000 Swapo
activists who dared to ask for more democracy within the party were
denounced as spies and traitors and flung into dungeons in Lubango, Angola.

Many were tortured, some until they died, and in the last few months before
independence 1,000 were taken from the cells and disappeared for ever. On
more than one occasion the future president toured the torture chambers.

"I remember him coming to visit us," said Pauline Dempers, one of the
Lubango detainees. "He said he didn't know whether to call us comrades
because we had become agents of the Boers. This was ridiculous and we told
him so.

"I had been buried alive as a punishment. I was lucky to have been dug out
before I suffocated - others weren't so lucky. I had to listen while friends
of mine were shot. In the end you had to confess to being an agent just to
live."

A presidential palace is now being built for Nujoma by North Koreans on a
piece of land just outside Windhoek, the capital. The North Koreans have
also just completed the building of Heroes' Acre, a huge monument to Swapo
guerrillas who fell in the struggle - and a replica of one they built for
Nujoma's hero, Mugabe.

Nujoma imitates Mugabe as faithfully as possible - and notably shares his
homophobia. "In Namibia we don't allow lesbianism or homosexuality. They
must keep it in Europe", he has declared.

He claims that Aids was invented by the CIA as part of its biological
weapons programme, and many gays went into hiding last year when he urged
that they should all be "arrested, imprisoned and deported". The Namibian
Society for Human Rights has noted a fivefold increase between 1999 and 2001
of "infractions upon civil and political rights", including "virulent
attacks on human rights defenders, the judiciary, the church, whites,
Europeans, foreigners, women and sexual minorities as well as the banning of
certain media".

The crisis in Zimbabwe has created a dramatic new situation for Nujoma, who
shares Mugabe's belief that western criticism is part of a concerted
imperialist assault on the national liberation movements of southern Africa:
if Mugabe falls, goes the argument, then Nujoma and Thabo Mbeki of South
Africa will be next.

Accordingly, the Namibian leader has indicated that he wants to radicalise
his "revolution" so that it can never be reversed.

He intends to turn up the heat against white farmers and to clamp down on
other perceived enemies.

Returning from the Earth Summit - where he accused the British of enslaving,
colonising and robbing his country - Nujoma astonished even his own
ministers by announcing that he had told western nations at the summit that
he no longer wanted foreign aid, even though drought has left his country
facing a huge shortage of food.

Most whites believe that Nujoma has no more respect for constitutional law
than Mugabe does and fear that his latest moves are the prologue to a
Zimbabwe-style frenzy of anti-white land invasions. Such a policy seems
entirely unnecessary: Namibia is one of the emptiest and most beautiful
countries on the planet with many natural resources.

"Sam's never been very bright but now he's lost the plot completely," said
one farmer who did not wish to be named.

"Everyone who can is getting their money out and investment has dried up.
Blair shouldn't have been surprised by what happened in Johannesburg. The
penalty for not standing up to a Mugabe is that you end up having two of
them."
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ABC Australia

Zimbabwe opposition candidates 'intimidated' from contesting polls
Hundreds of opposition candidates have been prevented from registering in
upcoming local elections in Zimbabwe through "severe intimidation", a party
official claimed on Sunday.

Paul Themba Nyathi, elections director of the Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC), said about half of the party's candidates for local council seats in
the September 28-29 elections had withdrawn, most due to "severe
intimidation".

The local council elections involving 1,400 wards come six months after
President Robert Mugabe won re-election in an election rejected by the MDC.

The state-controlled Sunday Mail newspaper reported that the opposition
failed to register candidates in some 700 wards, effectively handing victory
to candidates of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front
(ZANU-PF) party.

Mr Nyathi alleged more than 20 of the party's candidates had been physically
assaulted, which he said had "sent a signal to others to withdraw".

He said thirty per cent of the party's candidates had been disqualified for
not possessing the correct documents, namely so-called "long" birth
certificates.

These documents are not required by law, Mr Nyathi said.

"They [ZANU-PF] shouldn't start celebrating yet - this is just the beginning
of the battle, as far as we're concerned," he said.
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News24

PAC supports Mugabe, Nujoma

Pretoria - The Pan Africanist Congress said on Sunday it supported the
interventions of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and Namibian head of
state Sam Nujoma at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in
Johannesburg last week.

"We indeed agree with them, as we have always done, that there can be no
peace for all if there is no land for all," PAC President Stanley Magoba
said in Pretoria after the party's National Executive Committee (NEC)
meeting.

"The desperate cry from the wilderness has been heard by the world. Even the
deaf of the United States of America and United Kingdom have heard it."

During the summit, Nujoma criticised British Prime Minister Tony Blair for
pursuing sanctions against Zimbabwe, while Mugabe aggressively defended his
controversial land reform programme.

In a speech in which he launched an attack at Blair, Mugabe said sustainable
development was not possible without agrarian reform.

Magoba said "some apologists for slow inconsequential land distribution have
used the tired argument of law and order to justify historic inequalities.

"It is against the law to seize land they claim, forgetting that apartheid
was legal and it was unlawful for African's to exercise political power."

Magoba also congratulated the organisers of the WSSD.

"The summit has come and gone. Indeed it was a historic function - the
largest in our time.

"We congratulate our people, especially the organisers, for conducting
themselves credibly. We hope investors, who have been marginalising us, will
at long last bring the much needed investment to bring release to the
unemployed and destitute of the country."

About former party deputy secretary, Wonder Masombuka, who is expected to
appeal against his expulsion from the party at the NEC meeting, Magoba said:
"The matter is still in progress, we are still discussing it."

He said an announcement would be made later in the day.

Masombuka was expelled for four years in August last year when a national
disciplinary committee pronounced him guilty of defrauding the party of at
least R350 000 and bringing the PAC into disrepute.

About the crossing the floor legislation, which the party was contesting at
the Constitutional Court, Magoba said the NEC resolved that the legislation
was "immoral and despicable".

About the raid of the PAC Free State offices, PAC deputy president Motsoko
Pheko said: "We condemn the police's action in this matter."

He said the PAC had taken the issue up with police and it would also take it
up in Parliament.

"We want them (the police) to apologise. They said they were investigating,
but they did not find the weapons they were talking about," Pheko said.

Police raided the PAC offices in Bloemfontein on August 27 looking for arms
but found none.
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News24

Mugabe to Libya for talks


Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and senior government ministers
left on Saturday for Libya, which has provided most of Zimbabwe's fuel for
the past three year, state radio reported.

The radio said Mugabe's delegation included Finance Minister Herbert
Murerwa, Energy Minister Amos Midzi and Gideon Gono, chief executive of the
Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe which has brokered previous oil deals.

Last year, Mugabe renegotiated with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi a $360m
fuel import deal for the supply of 100 000 tonnes of oil products per month.

Since foreign currency shortages triggered supply disruptions in Zimbabwe
three years ago, the north African country is Zimbabwe's single largest
supplier of petroleum-based fuels.

Gaddafi is a key ally of Mugabe, who has faced criticism on the
international scene over his controversial drive to seize white-owned farms
for redistribution to blacks and his disputed re-election in March.

Zimbabwe is currently suffering an economic crisis widely blamed on Mugabe's
mismanagement since assuming power at independence from Britain in 1980.
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Reuters: September 8, 2002 5:32 PM
 
Deadline for Zimbabwe farmers expires
 
By Stella Mapenzauswa


HARARE (Reuters) - A new deadline for Zimbabwe's white farmers to quit their properties and make way for landless blacks has expired with no news of fresh arrests.

John Worswick, Vice Chairman of farm lobby group Justice for Agriculture, said some farmers had hurriedly left their land as the deadline approached, but would soon return.

"I'm sure a lot of them will be going back to their farms tomorrow. We also had a lot of farmers on their properties who haven't been arrested," Worswick told Reuters.

"The threat was very real, it was there... but it hasn't happened. We are looking at a situation of a damp squib, it was an empty threat if you like," he added.

President Robert Mugabe has ordered 2,900 commercial farmers to quit their land without
compensation under a controversial programme to seize white-owned farms and hand them over to landless blacks.

JAG says some 2,500 farmers have defied the initial eviction orders. Police have charged more than 300 defiant farmers.

Earlier, JAG spokeswoman Jenni Williams said the latest order for white farmers to leave their land on Sunday appeared to be unofficial and urged farmers to defy it.

"This is not an official deadline. It's a deadline that District Administrators and police have
seemed to talk about, but we've had no government ministers actually say this is a specific deadline," Williams told Reuters.

District administrators and police had been visiting white commercial farms -- mainly in the
Mashonaland West province -- warning them that if they were not off their land by 1200 GMT on Sunday they would be arrested, she said.

Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said he was not aware of the Sunday deadline, but said police were carrying out arrests relating to an initial August 8 government deadline.

"It's an ongoing exercise as far as we are concerned," he said, without giving any details on new arrests.

On Wednesday, Mugabe told white farmers to cooperate over the reforms, leave the country or face jail.

"Those (who are defiant) do not deserve to be in Zimbabwe and we shall take steps to ensure that they are not entitled to our land," Mugabe told supporters who turned out to welcome him home from the Earth Summit in Johannesburg.

JAG URGES FARMERS TO STAY

A separate statement by JAG late on Saturday said scores of farmers affected by the eviction orders have had the notices overturned by the High Court.

"We call on farmers who have the legal right to remain on their land to stand firm against this latest threat to commercial agriculture, and we call upon the regional and international community to recognise the plight of farmers and farm workers," it said.

Zimbabwe has been in crisis since pro-government militants led by veterans of the 1970s
liberation war began invading white-owned farms in early 2000.

Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, says his land drive is aimed at
correcting colonial injustice, which left 70 percent of the country's best land in the hands of white farmers.

Aid agencies say nearly half the country's 13 million people need food aid this year, a result of a wider food crisis in six drought-stricken southern African countries which they say has been exacerbated by Mugabe's land reforms.

Reuters

Reuters: September 8, 2002 11:16 AM
 
Zimbabwe farmers face new deadline to leave
 
By Stella Mapenzauswa
 
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's white farmers are facing a new deadline today to quit their properties and make way for landless blacks under President Robert Mugabe's land reforms.
 
Jenni Williams, spokeswoman for farm lobby group Justice for Agriculture (JAG) said the latest order for white farmers to leave their land by 2 p.m. (1 p.m British time) appeared to be unofficial and urged farmers to defy it.
 
"This is not an official deadline. It's a deadline that District Administrators and police have seemed to talk about, but we've had no government ministers actually say this is a specific deadline," Williams told Reuters.
 
District administrators and police had been visiting white commercial farms -- mainly in the Mashonaland West province -- warning them that if they were not off their land by the deadline they would be arrested, she said.
 
Police and government officials were not immediately available for comment.
 
Mugabe has ordered 2,900 commercial farmers to quit their land without compensation under a controversial programme to seize white-owned farms and hand them to landless blacks.
 
JAG says some 2,500 farmers have defied the eviction orders. Police have charged more than 300 farmers with defying the initial August 8 government deadline.
 
"They are within their constitutional and legal rights, they must stay. This is just another way that they are trying to enforce the other deadlines that have come and gone," Williams added.
 
On Wednesday, Mugabe told white farmers to cooperate over the reforms, leave the country or face jail.
 
"Those (who are defiant) do not deserve to be in Zimbabwe and we shall take steps to ensure that they are not entitled to our land," Mugabe told supporters who turned out to welcome him home from the Earth Summit in Johannesburg.
 
JAG URGES FARMERS TO STAY
 
A separate statement by JAG late on Saturday said scores of farmers affected by the eviction orders have had the notices overturned by the High Court.
 
"We call on farmers who have the legal right to remain on their land to stand firm against this latest threat to commercial agriculture, and we call upon the regional and international community to recognise the plight of farmers and farm workers," it said.
 
Zimbabwe has been in crisis since pro-government militants led by veterans of the 1970s liberation war began invading white-owned farms in early 2000.
 
Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, says his land drive is aimed at correcting colonial injustice, which left 70 percent of the country's best land in the hands of white farmers.
 
Aid agencies say nearly half the country's 13 million people need food aid this year, a result of a wider food crisis in six drought-stricken southern African countries which they say has been exacerbated by Mugabe's land reforms.
 

Reuters
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BULAWAYO SOUTH
MP FEEDBACK MEETING (Spread the word)

WHERE : Ascot Racecourse
WHEN:  Monday 9th September, 2002
TIME: 1730 Hrs (5.30 PM) Prompt

SPEAKER: The Hon. David Coltart MP
 
What is going on?
Where to from here ?
Find out!! This is your chance to hear the truth about recent events

Be there, bring your friends and have your questions and concerns answered !!

"We are the winners - Together we WILL complete the change for a better life for all"

++++++++++++
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MSNBC

Mugabe, ministers visit ally Libya -- state radio



Sept. 7 -        HARARE, Sept 7 (AFP) - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe
and senior government ministers left on Saturday for Libya, which has
provided most of Zimbabwe's fuel for the past three year, state radio
reported.

       The radio said Mugabe's delegation included Finance Minister Herbert
Murerwa, Energy Minister Amos Midzi and Gideon Gono, chief executive of the
Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe which has brokered previous oil deals.
       Last year, Mugabe renegotiated with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi a
$360 million fuel import deal for the supply of 100,000 tonnes of oil
products per month.
       Since foreign currency shortages triggered supply disruptions in
Zimbabwe three years ago, the north African country is Zimbabwe's single
largest supplier of petroleum-based fuels.
       Gaddafi is a key ally of Mugabe, who has faced criticism on the
international scene over his controversial drive to seize white-owned farms
for redistribution to blacks and his disputed re-election in March.
       Zimbabwe is currently suffering an economic crisis widely blamed on
Mugabe's mismanagement since assuming power at independence from Britain in
1980.
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Posted: Mon, 9 Sep 2002 7:45 AEST
 
Zimbabwe farming exodus continues
More than 100 white farmers have evacuated their properties in Zimbabwe, amid fears of further arrests.
 
The farmers, from Mashonaland West district, packed up their possessions and drove to the capital Harare after officials imposed a deadline.
 
They had been ordered to leave their properties by midday local time.
 
However, by early afternoon, there were no reports of arrests.
 
Spokeswoman for farm lobby group Justice for Agriculture, Jenni Williams, says the deadline was unofficial.
 
"The nature of the deadline really was an illegal and we feel intimidatory tactic, but definitely not a legal deadline in any way shape or form," she said.
 
Ms Williams says the farmers are expected to assess the situation and return to their farms within the next 48 hours.
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