Posted on 08/14/2002 5:24:19 AM PDT by Clive
Robert Mugabe, on a Zimbabwe state holiday which - even in less traumatic times - was notorious for militant anti-white rhetoric, delivered a mixture of menace and false assertions Monday, adding to the chaos and confusion over seizures over commercial farms.
He made no mention of his long vaunted Aug. 9-10 deadline for 2,900 farmers to leave, but said the land will be taken over by the end of August. Meanwhile, a majority of white farmers hang on, nervously defying eviction orders and threats of jail; the Commercial Farmers' Union, vainly seeking to mollify the authorities, tells members to avoid confrontation, while a militant lobby tells farmers to stay; and the High Court rules that the regime cannot seize mortgaged farms.
Mugabe and his two octogenarian vice presidents, Simon Muzenda and Joseph Msika, go on contradicting themselves, each other, and the realities in the rural areas, while the CFU keeps offering compromises and being called racist.
All that is certain is that food shortages worsen and queues for staple items get longer and longer. Mugabe added to the confusion in his Heroes' Day speech Monday by reiterating a patently false claim that farmers are allowed to keep a single farm, and adding a new one: that "loyal" white farmers would be allowed to stay - when 95 percent of all commercial farmers have been ordered to leave their properties.
As well as the rhetoric, there is confusion over exactly what the law is, who is breaking it, and what the facts are. The Commercial Farmers' Union says 6,022 farms covering 10.2 million hectares are targeted for takeover in the next few months - 95 percent of all white holdings; and that 2,900 of their 4,500 members have received "Section 8" eviction orders under the Land Acquisition Act, which required them to be off their properties by midnight August 8-9 on pain of two years' imprisonment.
The CFU believed 30 percent had complied, while the rest were anxiously awaiting developments, and trying to safeguard their assets. Many had sent their families to safety.
However, acting Minister of Agriculture Ignatius Chombo said a total 2,000 orders had been issued and 400 had complied with a deadline he believed was 24 hours later. "All the excuses by the farmers show what an arrogant and racist bunch they are," said Chombo, while the US State Department described the evictions as "reckless and reprehensible" when 6 million Zimbabweans already lack adequate food. Chombo likewise dismissed as "raw racism" the plea by CFU president Colin Cloete for a moratorium on Section 8 seizures and evictions, in order to sustain crop production.
Fearing being seen as provocative and also afraid that the police have orders to make mass arrests of farmers at some unspecified time, the CFU dissociated itself from test cases brought last week by farmers facing eviction.
In the first, George Quinell won a temporary stay on the grounds his Section 8 order was invalid. His lawyers argued that Joseph Made ceased to be Agriculture Minister on April 1 (and was therefore not lawfully entitled to sign the order) because Mugabe has failed to gazette a new Cabinet after claiming victory in disputed March 9-11 elections. The matter has yet to be argued and formally decided.
In the second case, Andrew Kockett obtained an interdict against seizure of Tengwe Estates because it was mortgaged to National Merchant Bank. Banks and other creditors who have been given title deeds as security have first claim, ruled High Court judge Charles Hungwe.
At the inaugural meeting last Tuesday of a militant lobby within the CFU, the Justice for Agriculture Group (JAG), Zimbabwe's most distinguished black advocate, former judge Eric Matinenga, went much further. The legislation under which Section 8 orders were promulgated was irregularly passed by Parliament, he said, as well as being unlawful and unconstitutional.
Matinenga added he had no confidence that Mugabe's regime would heed court injunctions against seizures and evictions, even if farmers wrested these from a subverted judicial bench, and declared that Zimbabweans must make a show of standing for their rights.
"We must record for posterity. Sooner or later we are going to have to explain what we did," said Matinenga. "When you look at the manner in which government has legislated - it has simply criminalised those who are not criminals and made criminals saints or martyrs."
Cloete disowned JAG the following day at the CFU's 59th annual congress - possibly its last. He said CFU leaders still wished for dialogue not confrontation.
Vice President Msika, invited to address the congress, said the evictions would be carried out, and also made the startling claim that only 74 white farms had been offered to the authorities for resettlement, (54 in the previous two days) under the CFU's compromise land reform plan.
Cloete insists 5 million hectares have been offered, but ignored. There had been a "reticence to deal with offers," said Cloete, in a masterly understatement.
Contradicting Mugabe's February 7 statement, "We will take all the land," Msika told Cloete: "There is room and space for everyone in this country. We are not usurping farms from anyone." Whites whose farms were acquired should apply for new land, he added, saying this way "no one should be rendered homeless."
"I am not a racist. I repeat, I am not a racist. I despise racism," he pledged, apparently forgetting that during the election campaign he declared: "Whites are not human."
His audience had not forgotten, either, that two years ago - during one of Mugabe's many absences abroad - Msika raised false hopes by announcing that war veterans and squatters should leave commercial farms immediately.
Mugabe, also flying in the face of facts, boasted Aug. 2 during a trip to Malaysia, "There is no farmer being deprived of the land, we are kicking nobody out." He added that the exercise had "gone very well" and bumper crops were expected.
Diplomats in Zimbabwe can only go on facts: a catastrophic drop in production by commercial farmers while the 350,000 "new" farmers, about whom the authorities boast, show no sign of stepping into the gap.
By December, 7.8 million people may be starving. By March, many may be dead.
He also supplies training cadre for thuggery.
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