Posted on 03/23/2002 7:51:26 PM PST by Clive
'GIVE me the house and furniture' Sabina Mugabe told farmer who was later shot. Fred Bridgland in Johannesburg and Philip Sherwell in Harare report
Sabina Mugabe, the Zimbabwean president's oldest sister, wanted property on the farm of Terry Ford, killed by settlers last week, for herself, according to local farmers and the country's Commercial Farmers Union.
Miss Mugabe, the Zanu-PF MP for Zvimba South, Robert Mugabe's home area, and Agness Rusike, a leader of the so-called war veterans, united to lead a terror campaign against white farmers and their workers in Mr Ford's area of Norton 16 months ago.
Miss Mugabe and Miss Rusike drove around Norton, 25 miles south-west of Harare, in an official black Mercedes Benz limousine exhorting black squatters to grab white farmland for themselves.
Among the holdings Miss Mugabe and Miss Rusike severely disrupted were Mr Ford's Gowrie Farm and the neighbouring Parklands Farm belonging to John Wilde, the country's leading specialist producer of seed vital for the once bountiful maize crop.
The dead man's cousin, Harry Munro, recalled how he witnessed Miss Mugabe arrive at Mr Ford's property in November 2000 in her Mercedes.
"She was with Agness Rusike and they were followed by some 30 youths in a truck chanting struggle songs that were meant to intimidate us," said Mr Munro, also a farmer.
"Mugabe said she knew that Paddy McCleary, Terry's aunt, had died a couple of months earlier and she wanted to take Paddy's house, on Terry's farm, for herself.
"To avoid trouble, Terry let Mugabe walk around Paddy's house. Then Mugabe said that she would be moving into the house the next day and that she wanted the furniture as well.
"Terry told Mugabe she couldn't do it. She said 'I can. My brother's the President and if you don't do it then heads will roll.' When Terry asked if she was threatening him, she denied it."
Following Miss Mugabe's visit, Miss Rusike returned leading a group of war veterans and confiscated all his farm equipment. "They allowed him to plough, but then they planted their own crops in the fields he had prepared," said Mr Munro.
It appears there was also a feud behind her intimidation of Mr Ford whose body was found with his dog refusing to leave his side, a scene shown in pictures transmitted around the world.
The Telegraph has learnt that he had told friends he had a "history" with Miss Mugabe dating from the 1970s guerrilla war.
"He said that he knew Sabina from the war," said a close friend. "They came from the same area. He was in the Rhodesian army then and she was with her brother's forces."
Miss Mugabe did not move into the house, but a few months later Miss Rusike arrived with a group of war veterans and took over another farm cottage.
Then, a month before Mr Ford's murder, they occupied his late aunt's house. "I can't show you proof that they've taken over the houses for Sabina Mugabe, but I can read between the lines."
Mr Munro was threatened with death last week by Zimbabwe's feared Central Intelligence Organisation after he gave a telephone radio interview to the BBC about his cousin's murder.
He said: "They phoned within half an hour of the end of the interview. A man said: `Do you want to be the next Terry Ford? If not, you'd better stop giving interviews to foreign correspondents.' I've had so many death threats I'm past caring."
Miss Rusike, leader of Norton's war veterans and an ally of Miss Mugabe in the women's wing of Zanu-PF was arrested last week on suspicion of looting following the spree of post-election farm occupations. She is not, however, expected to face charges linked to Mr Ford's killing. Four men have appeared in court charged with his murder.
Another Norton farmer said he was on Miss Mugabe's hitlist and asked not to be named because he has gone into hiding.
"There's a gang of 40 people who take directions from her when it comes to house and farm takeovers," he said. "I'm on her hitlist. I've been shot at because I don't take any abuse from her and because I'm a member of the MDC [the opposition Movement for Democratic Change].
"She's after all the farms she can get for her extended family. Her gang goes around Norton intimidating and beating people. They're just looting houses and causing mayhem. There's nothing constructive about this land grab: It's a bloody nightmare."
For a long time, black farmworkers who do not co-operate with the gang have been disappearing.
"Occasionally she has come to my place, shouting and calling me a white Boer who is trying to recolonise Zimbabwe. When she was really losing it she'd tell me she would take all the farms, all the furniture, and kill me if necessary."
I hope there is mass starvation over there when the food runs out, they will reap what they sow. I know there are a few good people, but they are the exception rather than the rule.
.....Savages.
There is going to be another one those charades? I hope the ebola virus breaks out at this conference, lol, they deserve it. And, NO, there will be absolutely no mention of Zimbabwe or any of the farm killings. They don't even care for the black workers they are killed on these farms. They're all savages, especially those that will be attending this joke of a conference.
Already a general's wife has been refused a visa and student visas have been cancelled because their parents had been targetted by the sanctions.
This is truly wicked, horrible , and if these back leaders imagine that the West is going to support them, in this, I really do think that they are wrong. Oh well, some miht ; however , I think the days of " noble savage " welfare , is now over. The UN fosters this crap, dictartors of any hue, are still dictators, and so are terrorists. It's way past time to cut the PC " white man's burden guilt trip " !
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