Posted on 06/22/2002 4:18:43 AM PDT by Clive
Saturday 22nd June 2002
Dear Family and Friends,
It is with great sadness that I write this letter to you today.
On Monday morning 51% of Zimbabwe's commercial farmers will be confined to their homesteads and forbidden to continue operating. If they attempt to keep producing food these farmers face either 2 years in prison, a fine of Z$20,000 or both.
2,443 farmers have Section 8 letters of Compulsory Acquisition and from Monday have 45 days in which to pay off their workers, pack their belongings and get out of their houses.
This is an obscene and sickening irony in a country that has almost 7 million people facing starvation and needing international food aid.
Officials estimate that by the end of the year, when the remainder of Zimbabwe's farmers with Acquisition Notices have been evicted, 2 million people will be homeless and jobless.
On Friday night ZBC television interviewed a man described as a Zanu PF strategist and this incredibly young Brigadier General gave his opinions on the coming eviction of farmers and their workers. "We should not give these people even 2 days to get out. We want our land" he said, "we should move in with our security forces and just take it. What is the law for, we should just take it."
Zimbabwe's farmers are scared and confused and do not know what to do but, after listening to the Brigadier General's intimidatory speech, I suspect many farmers and their workers will throw in the towel.
To exacerbate the looming horror, neither the Director nor President of our Commercial Farmers Union have made any statements this week and have given no directives to the members whom they supposedly represent.
For 27 months the CFU have continued to say they can do nothing; they have dropped all litigation against the government and urged their members to negotiate with the very people who have stripped us all of our human, legal and constitutional rights.
They have urged the farmers to engage in dialogue and co exist with arbitrary men who have raped, murdered and beaten farmers and their workers, burned and looted their homes and crops and stripped them of every ounce of pride and dignity.
It is a tragic situation for us all and the paralyzed silence and inaction of the Commercial Farmers Union now leads the entire nation to widespread starvation.
To really appreciate the enormity of the tragedy in Zimbabwe, this week I paid a visit to our farm just outside of Marondera. I had been told that upwards of 500 people had been dumped there and that 2 people had died on the farm in the last week. What I saw was beyond all comprehension and I am still struggling to come to terms with the reality of it. Our farm was completely taken over by war veterans less than 6 weeks ago and is being used by the government as a dumping ground for squatters who have been evicted from other farms which have now been claimed by senior government officials. There are indeed at least 500 people on the farm now but they are not squatting all over the 1000 acre property, they are camped out in less than 5 acres on the driveway, in the house, tobacco barns, workshops, bulk feed rooms and in the milking parlour.
The homestead area is littered with plastic and tin shacks and children (estimated to number 200) barefoot and in raggedy clothes play amongst goats, chickens and ducks.
There are only 3 pit latrines in the homestead area of our farm and the local people say that the smell of human feaces is permanent and nauseating. They say you cannot walk in amongst the squatters because the ground is a sea of human and animal excrement. The war veterans who took over the farm 6 weeks ago burnt out the borehole so there is no water either and there are already fears of cholera.
The squatters say they were dumped on our farm by Marondera government officials. They have been told that they will be moved to other farms at a later date after they have completed the necessary government application processes.
These 500 people have been used for political purposes for 27months and have now been discarded like trash. There is a humanitarian disaster of massive proportions unfolding on our Marondera farm and absolutely no one to turn to for help.
In my book African Tears I spoke of foreseeing the day when there would be blood on our fields, never did I think that it would be urine or that children would run through our timber plantations with human excrement encrusting their feet.
Until next week, with love and tears, cathy.
Especially the unusual kind that you get in Zim.
Characterized by full irrigation dams, burnt-out bore hole pumps, vandalized drip irrigation systems, veldt fires and land from which farm workers have been forcibly evicted.
In 2 years Zim's agrarian sector has gone from highly technological farming system, hedged against dry spells using modern planning and a net exporter of agricultural products to become a medieval, subsistence, slash-and burn, scratch agricultural system in which irrigation means sending the wife and the girls a kilometer or more to fetch pails of water from the nearest stream.
Secondly, I think that this situation in Zim needs to be placed in a larger context. Since WW II, the western world has been in constant retreat in the face of nonwestern cultures.
We have been in retreat largely due to demographic factors. The pop is exploding in the dysfunctional societies of the third world and the pop is stagnant in the West. This is compounded by a Western paralysis springing from 1) plentiful decadence and 2) a philosophical guilt complex
As a result the retreat has been slow but steady. It began with decolonization in the 50s and 60s...when europe was forced out of its colonies by indigneous insurgents (such as in Algeria, Kenya, etc). Then, the process moved to those areas where Western minorities settled and established minority rule (Rhodesia and South Africa).
Now, the conflict is moving to areas where the West has a majority. The bell is currently tolling for Israel. They are being demographically swamped, and are facing an indigenous insurgency like the viet minh or mau maus.
Just over the horizon, the american southwest, and the rim of southern europe are next up. Ultimately, the scene will move to the very heartland of Western Civilization..europe, USA, Canada, etc.
What we are now seeing in Zim is merely the last flicker of Western civilization there as it slides under the african tide. The Rhodesians were faced with Hamlet's choice: To be, or not to be. At one time, they had the tools and ability to decisively change the situation and alter the demographics of their nation....but they balked. Now, they are paying the price. I hope that the Israelis are watching the Rhodesians carefully....its fair warning.
What a fetid, filthy, God-forsaken s**thole.
Better to be on the dole in a slum in London than thrown into an unmarked African grave with 1000 others murdered because they're white.
There is good and there is evil in this world. The lines are being drawn.
Do a search of Free Republic for articles with Zim or Zimbabwe in the title.
A fight! A fight! Between the n*gg*rs and the whites!
If the whites don't win, we'll all jump in!
LOL Just kidding. That was an old joke when I was young.
I disagree slightly with the statement that the west has been retreating since WW2.
The west, driven by a socialist surge that defined Hitler's Germany as the embodiment of "right wing conspiracy" (a bogus interpretation, rarely disputed), actively encouraged european retreat from non-european lands.
Remember?
Empires were bad, just because they were empires.
We encouraged both Congos, Communist North Vietnam ('till the late fifties), and dozens of "wars of liberation' across the globe, even Castro's revolution was hailed during it's course.
Simple facts such as the inability of locals to run their own lives were of no matter.
The plan was to restore local control, enlist them into the UN, and nations would discuss their problems into resolution.
(Swear to God, I remember the lecture from 1963.)
Everyone would share in the brave new world.
This was all based in "the race thing" wherein any criticism was interpreted as white disdain for "people of color" regardless how accurate the criticism may have been.
Rhodesia and South Africa could not be allowed to retain European dominance just as Iran could not be allowed to remain a secular state that hinted at westernism surrounded by islamic "aspirations".
Looks like the experiment worked quite well; we are all now sharing the benefits of tyrannical, backward, criminal, and terrorist societies that our own government and self generated guilt created.
Trouble is that no one in 1948 anticipated that those newly elevated third world lords would one day turn their eyes on our own territory.
Even now, with fifty-plus years of evidence on hand, American politicians and self-interest groups continue to rationalize the re-mexicanization of the South West USA.
Coming to a neighborhood near you....
"Out of chaos comes order", if the Western people can jettison the "White Guilt" complex than some semblance of civilization will be retained even if territorily diminished eg; no California, no Marseille.
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