- Dear Family and Friends,
-
- Since the end of February 2000 Zimbabwe has been a country
in crisis. Hundreds of thousands of farm workers, managers and owners
were thrown off their properties to make way for people who at first were
called "peaceful demonstrators", then "land invaders,"
then "settler farmers" and are now called "new farmers."
Homes were taken over, farmers and their workers were murdered, assaulted
and terrorized, private property was looted, burnt or seized, and agricultural
equipment and machinery became the property of the State. To make what
our government calls this "Agrarian Revolution" look OK in the
eyes of the world, Presidential Powers were used, the constitution was
changed, court rulings were ignored and legislation and statutory instruments
were gazetted in favour of the actions of the Zimbabwe government.
-
- As each month and year passed Zimbabwe got hungrier,
food got scarcer and inflation soared from 10 to 600 percent. No one really
expected 2004 to be any better, particularly if we were to believe what
we could see with our own eyes and even if we believed the propaganda churned
out in Zimbabwe every day. As the country's main growing season approached
last year, I wrote in my letter of the 9th August 2003: "Night after
night on the State owned television there are desperate pleas from people
who were allocated 7 hectare plots on farms. Plough for us, they cry,
give us seed and fertilizer." Three weeks later I wrote: "This
week even the State run newspapers announced that the seed companies could
only provide 40% of national requirements." And, in October 2003,
I wrote: "There is neither seed nor fertilizer to buy in the shops."
-
- Zimbabwe's maize crop has not yet been harvested but
for the last two weeks the government have announced that we are in for
a "bumper harvest." At first they said we could expect 1.7 million
tonnes and now our Agriculture Minister Joseph Made has fine tuned his
estimate to very precise and exact numbers and says that Zimbabwe is about
to reap two million, four hundred and thirty one thousand, one hundred
and eighty two tonnes of maize. WOW, if the Ministers figures are correct,
you would think our government would be throwing the borders open and inviting
journalists, camera crews and agricultural experts from all over the world
to come and see just exactly what an awesome harvest has been achieved.
- They are not!
-
- A fortnight ago the Zimbabwe government ordered a UN
crop assesment team to leave the country after it had been in the field
for only 4 days. The World Food Programme said they had written approval
to carry out the assessment but Minister Made said they were here without
his say so. The UN described Minister Made's estimated harvest figures
as "impossible" and "a fantasy", the FES Foundation
warned of "an impending famine" and Zimbabwe's Commercial Farmers
Union estimated a crop of around 700 000 tonnes saying: "the seed
that was sold does not add up to that output."
-
- This week the Minister of Social Welfare said that Zimbabwe
does not need any more World Food Aid. Frankly, our eyebrows are raised
very high and ordinary people here are very scared of how the next few
months are going to be. Unless the government has a change of heart, there
aren't going to be any journalists or camera crews to witness the facts
on the ground and there isn't going to be any world food aid to catch people
who teeter on the brink. Everything in Zimbabwe is dictated by politics,
even harvest figures and elections are getting near.
-
- Until next week,
-
- with love, cathy
-
- Copyright cathy buckle 15th May 2004.
- <http://africantears.netfirms.com>
|
