Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

End Near for Zimbabwe's Last White Farmers
VOA ^ | May 30, 2011 | Peta Thornycroft

Posted on 06/02/2011 7:47:24 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican

Zimbabwean farmers attend a meeting of white commercial farmers in capital Harare

Zimbabwe's Supreme Court heard a case on behalf of three farmers who claimed the constitution excluded confiscation of their land because they bought their properties after the colonial era ended with independence in 1980.

The Supreme Court did not agree and quickly dismissed their application.

One of the farmers, Colin Cloete, a former president of the Commercial Farmers’ Union at the height of often violent land invasions seven years ago, was one of the applicants.

He, like many of his colleagues, has been arrested, harassed and appeared in court many times, to try to stay on his farm.

Like most surviving white farmers, the cost of going to court to try to fight his eviction has been unaffordable.

Looking back over the long and difficult years, Cloete, now 58, said his struggle to remain on his farm did not make economic sense.

“Economically we should have moved off then, at the beginning, as we would have been 10 years younger and that much more energetic,” said Cloete.

Cloete said he had begun looking looking for a house in Harare, not least so he could move his possessions to safety.

He said the land invasions launched after Mr. Mugabe lost a referendum in 2000 had hurt him and Zimbabwe’s economy, and no one had benefited from this except the elite in the ZANU-PF Party.

“We are treated like second-class citizens, we are treated like we are still just visitors to this place. My father was born in this country, before Mr. Mugabe, but I am still a visitor,” said Cloete.

(Excerpt) Read more at voanews.com ...


TOPICS: Breaking News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: genocide; rhodesia; zimbabwe; zimbabwefarmers; zimbabwewhitefarmers; zimbabwewhites
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 61-8081-100101-120 ... 181-195 next last
To: kearnyirish2

Israel too.


81 posted on 06/03/2011 2:42:20 PM PDT by ichabod1 (Nuts; A house divided against itself cannot stand.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: Lancey Howard

Well, you’re right, except you give them too much credit———they don’t have a toilet to go into. It’s guaranteed tho, every time a country reverts to it’s older name for no real reason except maybe new-age nationalism of some sort then the economy reverts to the slit trench. Just go down the list: Burma, Ceylon, Ivory Coast -—just to recall a few quickly-—I’m getting tired already. Ain’t it curious and coincidental how Obamuzzie is doing him damdest to get us (US) also “reverted” to a mutually miserable slit trench of out own.??? Notably, while you were studying the Rhodies I was studying Aramco——the terlets are different but the direction is the same.


82 posted on 06/03/2011 2:59:01 PM PDT by cherokee1 (skip the names---just kick the buttz)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: TheBattman

“How come the Lamestream Media apparently COMPLETELY IGNORES this?”

Because it doesn’t fit the narrative or the template of their agenda.

The news media is one of the most corrupt institutions in the world.


83 posted on 06/03/2011 3:03:03 PM PDT by headstamp 2 (We live two lives, the life we learn and the life we live with after that.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: sauropod

read


84 posted on 06/03/2011 3:03:46 PM PDT by sauropod (The truth shall make you free but first it will make you miserable.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: kearnyirish2

They’re not serfs unless they’re legally tied to the land, unable to leave and ply their trades elsewhere. And to whomever happens to be the lord of the land at that time. Make no mistake, serfdom is slavery. It’s not chattel slavery, it’s not indentured servitude, but it’s a kind all its own I suppose.

Not that you wouldn’t know all that already, mate.


85 posted on 06/03/2011 3:05:59 PM PDT by ichabod1 (Nuts; A house divided against itself cannot stand.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 51 | View Replies]

To: familyop

“If they, the white farmers, came to the United States, would they be classified as African-American?”

No, we have to have more illegals instead.


86 posted on 06/03/2011 3:06:35 PM PDT by headstamp 2 (We live two lives, the life we learn and the life we live with after that.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: kearnyirish2

I’m a reading a book written about a round-the-world motorcycle journey in the early 1970s (”Jupiter’s Travels). He describes meeting up with many Indians who were traveling “on business”. When he discussed it more with one of them over dinner, basically he was born and raised in Kenya, the crown abandoned them and he was a man without a country (the British Consulate took his passport).

He also explained the differences between Zambia and Rhodesia (N & S Rhodesia) in stark contrast. He had to go over to Botswana in order to get from Zambia to Rhodesia. This was in 1973.

I honestly didn’t know much about this history.


87 posted on 06/03/2011 3:14:06 PM PDT by Betis70 (Bruins!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: Lancey Howard

88 posted on 06/03/2011 3:14:58 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: PLMerite

“gunning up” and defending the family digs sure seems like the natural and correct response to me. Reminds me of Mad Mike Hoar and his band of enforcers back in the 1970’s. But I never hear of these white farmers getting together for self defense, arming themselves, or even getting really mad about being invaded, robbed, run off, etc. Going to court to defend against machetes seems “inappropriate.” Are they missing a gene or something.? It seems to me if the family farm is not worth fighting for maybe they should just sign off on it??? BTW the same is true on our southern border.


89 posted on 06/03/2011 3:17:32 PM PDT by cherokee1 (skip the names---just kick the buttz)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies]

To: kearnyirish2

I don’t know what history book you are reading, but i suggest getting a better one.

Rhodesia unilaterally declared independence from Britain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unilateral_Declaration_of_Independence

Its a bit like you think that if you walk about on your parents you can claim to be abandoned by them....i think you have a certain axe to grind.....


90 posted on 06/03/2011 3:23:31 PM PDT by Stolly
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: shield

The “Blacks”, The true “African Negro” have proven by the wonderful culture in Africa is a curse worse than Islam!

How can you expect them to improve on what we see from the “cratle of mankind”

Africa is the only area of the world without a written language.

Go figure how stupid all this is, let them starve!


91 posted on 06/03/2011 3:26:28 PM PDT by tiger63
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 75 | View Replies]

To: agere_contra

Britain was going to turn the government over to the blacks; with incredible foresight the Rhodesians saw the writing on the wall, and acted.

I’m sure they didn’t just wake up one day and think they could go it alone.

Britain’s history does enough damage itself; no bigotry is necessary.


92 posted on 06/03/2011 3:33:37 PM PDT by kearnyirish2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 73 | View Replies]

To: headstamp 2

I didn’t write what you replied to. It was quoted from someone else.


93 posted on 06/03/2011 3:36:03 PM PDT by familyop (Shut up, and eat your brains!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 86 | View Replies]

To: LizardQueen

“I’d sow my acres with salt in the middle of the night then leave the country.”

Wouldn’t even be necessary; lions would till the soil before the Zimbabweans would. In fairness to some of the blacks, they were gainfully employed on the farms until they also were beaten/chased off the land. Wherever those farmers land, they should watch current news clips of the ensuing chaos as pornography.


94 posted on 06/03/2011 3:39:37 PM PDT by kearnyirish2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 74 | View Replies]

To: kearnyirish2

Ian Smith was an honorable enough person but only a delusional person would think that a white only government can be maintained in a black majority African country. A delusion apparently shared by yourself.

Smith’s actions radicalized politics in that country and contributed to the rise of Zanu-PF.


95 posted on 06/03/2011 3:41:13 PM PDT by Stolly
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 92 | View Replies]

To: Chickensoup

In at least some counties, not having running water (well/plumbing etc. instead hauling water in small containers) is a legal excuse for social workers and police to take parents’ children permanently away. That has been done to parents who had clean records and were not abusive to their kids. Not that the doctrine of parens patriae shouldn’t be abolished anyway, and it will before long (see default and revolution by young folks ahead).


96 posted on 06/03/2011 3:46:22 PM PDT by familyop (Shut up, and eat your brains!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 71 | View Replies]

To: MinorityRepublican
According to Tony Hawkins at the University of Zimbabwe, there has been a 51 per cent fall in agricultural output between 2000 and 2007, a 47 per cent fall in industrial output, and a 35 per cent fall in resources output. Over the same period, GDP per capita has fallen back by more than 40 per cent. At the same time, inflation has risen to near the 100,000 per cent mark. The UN World Food Programme estimates that 4.2m Zimbabweans - a third of the population - will face serious food shortages
97 posted on 06/03/2011 3:48:41 PM PDT by Lancey Howard
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 88 | View Replies]

To: Stolly

Rhodesians knew Britain was going to turn over the management to blacks (as the did in Uganda & Kenya), so they acted; they certainly never preferred to fight the war alone, but saw that as the only alternative.

I’m not sure why that is hard to understand; there is hardly an axe to grind. Britain did the same thing in their African and Asian colonies, and is attempting to in its Northern Ireland colony (which is no longer an industrial powerhouse, but rather a population on the dole). If more white Brits had moved into other colonies, that scenario would have played out all over.


98 posted on 06/03/2011 3:49:26 PM PDT by kearnyirish2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 90 | View Replies]

To: Stolly

I think he was desperate, and white rule was probably not morally justifiable, but you have to understand the climate in which those actions were taken and that in which the war was lost. When the whites tried to fight for it, they were flanked by two Portuguese colonies with which they could coordinate their counterinsurgency (Portugal had a military government at the time, determined to keep Angola and Mozambique), with South Africa as an ally to the south (dealing with their own insurgency). The overthrow of Portugal’s government was the kiss of death, as it put the former allies on the flanks in the hands of governments assisting the blacks in Rhodesia instead, while denying the whites assistance and arms. The white Rhodesians felt betrayed by a home government for which they had fought in 2 world wars; as far as who was right or wrong they can sort that out themselves.

I’m Irish; we had no colonies (being one ourselves), so I have no horse in this race. I do see that the lib lessons of the 1970s and 1980s have borne fruit, as many Americans here seem to have bought into the publicly disseminated nonsense about whites abusing blacks for their entertainment.


99 posted on 06/03/2011 3:58:17 PM PDT by kearnyirish2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 95 | View Replies]

To: MinorityRepublican

Any White person still in that Hell hole is crazy! Get out and let them starve.


100 posted on 06/03/2011 4:00:31 PM PDT by Anti-Bubba182
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 61-8081-100101-120 ... 181-195 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson