- Dear Family and Friends,
-
- The rains have arrived in Zimbabwe and after 5 months
of clear skies and dry days, the arrival of rain should be cause for celebration.
With more than half our population starving you would think that there
would be a great flurry of activity out on the farms and that the government
would be working 24 hours a day to get professional farmers planting seeds
in the ground. Exactly the opposite is happening in Zimbabwe
this year as the government's so-called Land Task Force have been touring
the country and evicting every commercial farmer they can find. It doesn't
seem to matter where the farm is, what is being produced or how desperately
the country needs the food being grown on a particular farm, the government
wants these professional food providers out.
-
- Farmers producing export crops like flowers which
earn foreign currency for Zimbabwe, are being evicted. In a landlocked
country like ours where all our fuel is imported and paid for with foreign
currency, removing the earners of US dollars is pure insanity. Other
farmers producing staple food like sugar have also come under attack and
39 sugar cane farmers were evicted from their properties and homes this
week. It seems that there is no foresight whatsoever in Zimbabwe's land
grab and it makes no sense at all that while we are starving, queuing
for hours and days and going without staple items, the government are evicting
the farmers and their workers and condemning us to both immediate
hunger and long term shortages. The repercussions of the events of 2002
will undoubtedly be felt in Zimbabwean stomachs for the next five years
at the very least.
-
- One of Zimbabwe's top cattle farmers, Sam Cawood, who
is 74 years old, was arrested by police in Beitbridge this week. Having
been ordered by the government to vacate his farm in a matter of days,
Sam was forced to send his entire breeding herd of Brahman cross Hereford
Cows for slaughter. The cows had begun calving and tiny calves, two and
three weeks old, could not go for slaughter, could not be abandoned and
certainly could not go in the trucks with their mothers as they would have
been trampled to death. Sam, forbidden by police from returning to
his farm, instructed his workers to do the only humane thing and slaughter
the calves rather than leave them to die of starvation. For this reason
Sam was arrested and told he was being charged under the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals Act. Sam shared his prison cell with 6 other people,
4 adults and two young boys. The boys, aged 12 and 14, had been thrown
into prison after stealing a pair of shoes. They had been there for 5 days
already and in that time had not seen a lawyer and had not had any food
at all. When Sam Cawood's wife bought him a toasted sandwich in prison,
the elderly farmer could not eat while others were not, he broke the
sandwich in half and gave it to the young boys. Sam was released from prison
the next day without charge - the two young boys are still there, unknown,
un-noticed and un-fed.
-
- Sam Cawood and two little boys are not the only people
who are in Zimbabwe's prisons this week. For many months Zimbabwe's government
school teachers have been appealing for an increase in their salaries.
Our country's educators presently earn less than the governments land officials
who are going around driving pegs into the ground and carving up other
people's farms. The teachers pleas have repeatedly gone unheard and so
this week they went on strike. A number of top officials of the teachers
union were arrested including Raymond Majongwe who was seriously assaulted
whilst in custody. His lawyers said that Raymond was unable to sit
or stand, had suspected broken ribs and possible internal bleeding. Across
the country teachers and civic leaders have been appalled at this treatment
but as always there is no one to turn to for assistance. Blacks and
whites, farmers and teachers, adults and children, professionals and peasants
are all alike. We have no legal, human or constitutional rights, there
is no one within Zimbabwe that can help us and apparently no one outside
the country prepared to intervene either. We are alone and floundering.
-
- Until next week,
-
- with love, cathy
-
- <http://africantears.netfirms.com>http://africantears.netfirms.com
- Copyright Cathy Buckle 12th Oct 2002
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