- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- Violation of either deadline carries maximum penalties
of two years in jail or a fine of Zim$20,000 (about £35).
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- 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.
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- 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
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- 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.
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- ìPeople cannot just get up and walk away from
everything they have built up in their lives. Itís absolutely unconstitutional.î
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- 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
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- 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.
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- 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
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- Copyright 2002 Times Newspapers Ltd.
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- http://www.timesonlinhttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/arti
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