Zimbabwe Whites Told It Is Against
Law To Farm Land
From Jan Raath in Harare
The Times - London
6-24-2
From midnight tonight it will be a crime for 2,900 Zimbabwean white farmers to produce food or exports to help to feed their countryís population, much of it now facing starvation.
In what could be the most serious single blow to the countryís already shattered economy, the farmers will tomorrow face arrest if they set foot on their lands. Twenty years ago the same farmers earned President Mugabeís newly independent nation its reputation as the breadbasket of Africa. Now the law allows them only to stay in their homesteads.
Amendments last month to laws governing the confiscation of land order the closure of 60 per cent of the countryís productive farmland. In 45 daysí time even their homesteads will be denied them, when the Land Acquisition Act orders automatic eviction.
Violation of either deadline carries maximum penalties of two years in jail or a fine of Zim$20,000 (about £35).
For most of the remaining 40 per cent of the farmers, a rash of new 90-day expulsion orders is being issued, and 94 per cent of the 28 million acres of white farmland has been formally listed for Mr Mugabeís land grab. A clause in the law allows farmers to apply for an exemption, and a group of tobacco farmers put in their applications last week. However, Jonathan Moyo, the Information Minister, was dismissive of the applications.
ìThey are a waste of time because they are cynical and sinister,î he said. ìThere will be no extra-judicial waiver. The land reform programme is real and irreversible.î
Jenni Williams, a spokesman for the Commercial Farmersí Union, said: ìThis is insanity. Ranchers have got to water their cattle. They canít just leave them. There are people with millions of dollars of wheat in the ground.
ìPeople cannot just get up and walk away from everything they have built up in their lives. Itís absolutely unconstitutional.î
The farmers were divided on how to deal with the new threat, she said. ìThere will be those who will not abandon their homes and would rather face the authorities.î
Ironically, the most effective resistance to Mr Mugabeís newest recklessness would be for all farmers to close down immediately and leave the regime with far worse food shortages, said Lindsay Campbell, 33, who farms tobacco and cattle in the Marondera area about 50 miles east of Harare.
ìIf we all just do what the minister says, they will realise pretty soon it wasnít such a smart move,î she said. ìOn Monday we are going to move all our cattle off. We are going to stop everything on Tuesday. We are not going to move outside our security fence.î
The Campbellsí property has just been ìresettledî for the second time. About two years ago it was allocated to peasant farmers who practise subsistence agriculture.
Now they have learnt that it has just been allocated again, this time to a senior government official. ìThe settlers are not going to like this,î she said.
Farmers will lose not only their land and homes, but all property that is ìpermanentlyî connected to the land, like pumps cemented into the ground and powerful electricity generators.
The new law says that farmers have the right to take their moveable property with them. In practice, most owners have been illegally forced, usually under police scrutiny, to leave with a couple of suitcases of clothing.
The tractors, earth-moving equipment, computers and sheds full of crops left behind, have been claimed by the senior ruling party functionaries, top military and police officers and their relatives ó Zimbabweís new farming class ó as their own.
Hopes for compensation have almost entirely been abandoned, especially now that the Government is in effect bankrupt and inflation is running at 120 per cent. Economists estimate that £5.5 billion worth of moveable assets have been illegally impounded or looted since February 2000, when ruling party militants began invading white farms.
Copyright 2002 Times Newspapers Ltd.
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