- Dear Family and Friends,
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- As I sit here and write this letter on a warm and windy
Saturday morning all hell is breaking loose in Zimbabwe. At this moment
29 farmers have been arrested but the number is changing every hour. In
a sickening but predictably cowardly fashion, farmers are being arrested
over the weekend when the courts are closed and magistrates are not available
for bail hearings. One of the men arrested has had both his brother and
his mother murdered by Mugabe supporters in the last two years.
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-
- On a number of farms around Marondera farmers are
simply being evicted by militant mobs, regardless of the fact that their
properties have not been listed for government acquisition at all, or if
they have, the deadlines for vacating their homes have not arrived. Some
are being given a day to get out of their homes, others as little as five
hours. In other cases farmers are simply sitting in their homes and just
waiting to be arrested. I feel so sickeningly helpless as I talk and write
to friends, advising them to make sure they have got a warm jacket, toothpaste
and toilet paper with them in case they are suddenly arrested.
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-
- There are increasing reports of the farm workers, evicted
along with their employers, simply camping on the sides of roads with nowhere
to go. The disgusting irony of this eviction and arrest of our farmers
and their workers is the growing evidence of entire villages
literally starving now. I have had reports this week from villagers
around Nyanga whose children are showing the classic signs of malnutrition
- their bellies distended and their hair taking on an orange hue.
-
- Listening to a BBC reporter speaking to a Zimbabwean
farmer this week I was shocked at the crass insensitivity and downright
hostility of the questioning. After hearing that the farmer is being ordered
off his land, out of his house and having his business and life's work
seized, the reporter said to him: "So, why don't you go then?"
The farmer replied that he was born here, that he is a Zimbabwean
and that he is growing food for a country where 6.8 million people
are starving. The reporter did not let it go, "But why don't you just
go? Mozambique, Botswana, they'll have you, why don't you just leave?"
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- I've been asked this same question hundreds of times
in the last three years and my answer is the same as the farmer speaking
to the BBC: I was born and educated here, so was my son, this is our home,
our country, we are Zimbabweans, we may have white skins but we are
Africans and we belong here. We love our country, we believe in democracy
and human rights and we are patriotic enough to demand our right to be
able to live and work in the country of our birth. Both the black and
white people in Zimbabwe are so patriotic that they have endured torture,
rape, murder and arrest in their fight for democracy. I often wonder if
some crazed bunch of skin heads suddenly bombarded their way into power
in England or America what the citizens of those countries would do - I
cannot believe that they they would just pack their bags and go to another
country where they perceive the grass to be greener. I cannot believe that
they would just let a bunch of crazed militants take over their homes and
possessions.
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- Neither can I understand why our neighbours in African
countries think that the horrors of Zimbabwe cannot happen in their countries.
It has taken less than 3 years for Zimbabwe to go from being a food exporter
to a beggar. This can happen in any country where politicians
refuse to leave power; it can happen in any country where ordinary men
and women turn a blind eye to corruption and nepotism, where they do not
get involved in their governance and do not speak out at injustices.
As I have for the last 12 months, I wear a small yellow ribbon pinned
to my shirt in support of people suffering in Zimbabwe. This week my ribbon
is for farmers sitting in stinking cells, for their workers camped out
on the roadsides and for starving villagers unable to get food aid because
they support the opposition MDC.
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- God help us.
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- Until next week,
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- with love,
- cathy.
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