- Dear Family and Friends,
-
- One day this week winter came to an end and Zimbabwe
was suddenly blessed with glorious warm sunshine, lengthening days and
an absolute explosion of bird life. In just a week it has become warm enough
to take jerseys and jackets off, work outside in the garden and sit out
in the early evenings. It is incredibly comforting to know that the routine
of nature and the seasons is one of the very few things that cannot be
destroyed in Zimbabwe's years of crisis. This summer, as it has for the
past four seasons, a kind of desperate urgency has re-appeared within our
government to do something about the complete chaos that continues to be
the order of the day on Zimbabwe's farms.
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- The issue under the spotlight at the moment is the government
Ministers and high ranking officials who have got, taken or been given
more than one farm. For four years President Mugabe has been using the
slogan "one farmer one farm" and kept promising to sort out the
mess that had arisen from the blatant lawlessness of land invasions. Recently
appointed to the position of Minister of Land Reform and Resettlement,
John Nkomo has begun trying to sort out the chaos. Ministers who have claimed
or been allocated more than one farm since 2000 have started receiving
"withdrawal letters" advising them that the land was being taken
back by Nkomo's Ministry.
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- According to the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper some
of the Ministers with "extra land holdings" are: Information
Minister Jonathan Moyo; Local Government Minister Chombo; Agriculture Minister
Made; Justice Minister Chinamasa and Transport Minister Mushowe. One of
the Ministers concerned said the withdrawal letters were "preposterous
and annoying." He said of the multiple farms credited to him, one
had been reallocated to his cousin and another to his mother.
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- So far Minister Nkomo is standing firm and has said he
won't be "intimidated, perturbed or frustrated by those causing all
this hullabaloo." Responding to a tirade against him in the state
owned Herald newspaper, Minister Nkomo said the angry outpourings by those
"defending the indefensible would not scare him or frustrate his efforts
to retrieve the farms."
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- Also now attempting to add legitimacy to the chaos surrounding
Zimbabwe's farms is the Governor of the Reserve Bank Gideon Gono. Referring
to the recent seizures of highly productive horticultural and export processing
zone farms, Gono said: "We now have a new set of farmers who want
to reap where they did not sow." Gono called them "fly by harvest
time farmers" who pitch up on a property just when a crop is ready
to harvest and declare the harvest, land, house and farm equipment as their
own.
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- As a dispossessed farmer who has been speaking out for
54 months, I would like to say to Minister Nkomo and Governor Gono: "Hello,
where have you been the last four and a half years!" The weather
is not the only thing hotting up in Zimbabwe.
-
- Until next week,
-
- with love, cathy
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- Copyright cathy buckle 31st July 2004 http://africantears.netfirms.com
My books on the Zimbabwean crisis, "African Tears" and "Beyond
Tears" are available outside Africa from: orders@africabookcentre.com
; www.africabookcentre.com ; www.amazon.co.uk ; in Australia and New Zealand:
johnmreed@johnreedbooks.com.au ; Africa: www.kalahari.net www.exclusivebooks.com
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