Riches to Rags: Zimbabwe throws farmer's wealth of experience aside

The Times ^ | June 26, 2002 | From Jan Raath in the Enterprise Valley

[gd124]

OWEN CONNOR, a white Zimbabwean farmer, committed a crime yesterday. Helped by half a dozen of his workers he poured seed maize into a fumigator and then bagged it.

A power cut had prevented Mr Connor, 68, completing the job by Monday so he decided to risk two years in jail rather than lose the grain.

Yesterday marked one of the more bizarre twists of modern African history as President Mugabe’s Government banned most of the country’s white farmers from growing food amid Zimbabwe’s worst famine in a century. Within 45 days 2,900 designated farmers must leave their property altogether.

Mr Connor is in the top league of a small group of white farmers who are legendary for their expertise. He and one of his sons, Kevin, are the only farmers in Africa to have produced four tonnes of wheat an acre. He also holds the national record for producing 5.1 tonnes an acre of a high-yielding maize.

Of Irish descent but born in Zimbabwe, Mr Connor left school when he was 15 to start farming on Oribi for his just-widowed mother. Starting with an ox-drawn plough — like the squatters now surrounding him — he doubled the arable area and built the rambling homestead.

Oribi’s 865 acres of arable land would now yield 3,500 tonnes of wheat, maize and soya beans and 150 slaughter cattle, but the farm was invaded by squatters in August 2000. They steadily encroached. His last crop on Oribi was 800 tonnes of wheat on the 220 acres to which he was confined last winter. For all of the farm’s rich soils, fed and tended by Mr Connor for more than 50 years, the squatters have produced just 15 tonnes of grain and ten bags of soya beans in the past year.

At this time, the land around the homestead should stretch to the horizon in green new wheat. Now the homestead is surrounded by dense, shoulder-high elephant grass and pigweed.

The squatters have chopped down the 120 mature macadamia nut trees he planted. “I tried to explain if they left them they would have an annual crop of US$50 a tree,” Mr Connor said. “They chopped every tree out so they could plant maize.”

“It’s been hell,” he says. He and his wife, Dawn, have suffered threats, vandalism, theft and extortion almost every day since then, and he has stress-related shingles. Kevin is soon to leave for new work in a neighbouring country. Mr Connor’s other son, Sean, is looking at prospects in New Zealand. His daughter, Cherry, is farming with her husband in Zambia.

But Mr Connor is not leaving. He has kept a grass cutter and hay baler with which to try to earn some income, “but it’s not a secure living”. He is a man of few words. Asked how he felt, a four-letter expletive was all that he could manage.

[cimon]

Let 'em starve, stupid bastards.

[TheLooseThread]

Mugabe = racist.

[solo gringo]

Any one with a lick of sense knows that the un and the usa will feed this bunch of sorry bastards hell they don't have to farm and grow thier food there is people just waiting to give them ahand out.and kiss thier a$$ in the name of the chilluns.

[DB]

I agree. No rescue this time.

[demkicker]

"Let 'em starve, stupid bastards."

Part of me shares your sentiments. Most of me is mad as hell that the Bush administration hasn't thought the Zimbabwe travesty worth menitoning.

Silly me.... I expected our President to use his bully pulpit to condemn tyranny, starvation, murder and rape. Mugabe is every bit as evil as Saddam, minus the nuclear threat (for now). I guess Bush doesn't want to step on too many maniacal toes or appear too critical.

Sign me disgusted...

[billybudd]

The squatters have chopped down the 120 mature macadamia nut trees he planted. “I tried to explain if they left them they would have an annual crop of US$50 a tree,” Mr Connor said. “They chopped every tree out so they could plant maize.”

This is the scariest part of all - there is no reasoning with these people, they do not even have self-interest. They are motivated by blind anger and hatred, like a monster.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

.

[another cricket]

Saddly we can not do everything. You deal with the big problems first.

a.cricket

[tiki]

They'd do it here too. Just look at how they carp about the farm bill.

I fell very sorry for these guys, I can't even begin to understand the frustration, anger and sadness they feel. I believe farmers are born but even if you can teach them, it takes years and a lot more than a college education to make a farmer and if Zimbabwe is starving now just wait for the future, it will cease to exist.

Most people think that their food comes from the grocery store, they work in their cushy offices and stop by for anything they desire at obsenely low prices and then cuss the government for protecting that luxury for them. I for one am damn sick of anyone who disses farmers, ranchers, loggers and miners. I live in a part of the country which has been devastated by the lack of them and I see our economy slowing and our trade deficit ballooning now because of it.

...end of rant, sorry.

[demkicker]

"Saddly we can not do everything. You deal with the big problems first."

I'm not suggesting that we, the US, can do "everything". Spotlighting world attention to expose and condemn a thug like Mugabe is all I'm asking.

Again, I don't think it's too much to ask that my President use his bully pulpit to mention the egregious behavior of Mugabe and his brutal regime which is intent on destroying a country of innocents.

[another cricket]

Let me see if I can explain. Once he spotlights he would be asked what he intends to do about the matter. At that point his answer would have to be "Nothing, I am kind of busy right now." "Well then." he would be asked, "Why did you bring it up?"

He is the president, not a reporter; he can not just bring a problem up himself without having some sort remedy. If you want to bring it to world attention without our having to develop a policy and do something about the situation someone else will have to bring it up. Let Tony Blair bring it up. These people that are being mistreated are British citizens for the most part and this is a former British colony.

As long as he says nothing it would be considered presumptuous and very bad manners for Bush to say something. This is the way international politics works.

a.cricket

[backhoe]

Let's add the banner:

AfricaWatch:

AfricaWatch: for AfricaWatch articles. 

Other Bump Lists at: Free Republic Bump List Register

And FWIW, I will send this out in a mass email later to various papers and commentators.