Zimbabwe -- Thousands of workers lose jobs as farmers quit

Financial Gazette (Zim) ^ | August 15, 2002 | Staff Reporter

[Clive]

NEARLY a third of Zimbabwe's estimated 300,000 farm workers were deprived of their jobs this week when close to 40 percent of large-scale commercial farmers quit farming operations in compliance with the government's eviction orders under its land reforms.

Thousands more are expected to lose their only source of livelihood as more commercial farmers, under pressure from the government to vacate their properties, move off the land later this week clearing the way for blacks to take over the farms.

Justice for Agriculture (JAG), a grouping of farmers seeking to challenge the evictions in court, this week said although it did not have the exact figures of farmers who had backed down to quit their properties, about 60 percent were still on the farms.

"JAG recognises that over 60 percent of farmers under notice of acquisition have remained on their farms and in their homes along with their staff and families," JAG spokeswoman Jenni Williams said.

"The farmers are not defying the government, but rather the orders, which they believe to be illegal and therefore intend to continue to fight the acquisition of their farms and title through the courts," she said.

Williams said about 30 percent of the farmers had quit the farms in the "past six weeks or so" while a few more moved off at about deadline time last week.

This means that nearly 40 percent of the 2,900 targeted farmers are no longer on the land, leaving their workers who JAG this week said stood at about 232,000, plus their families and dependants of around 1.5 million, with an uncertain future.

Thousands of workers have lost their jobs in the past two years as farmers downsized operations in the face of continued harassment, which accompanied the farm seizures.

Many more have been thrown out of jobs in past three months since May when the government, through its Section 8 orders, ordered farmers to wind up their operations in preparation for the August 10 deadline to completely vacate the farms.

About 2,900 commercial farmers-making up 84.5 percent of all commercial farmers-were required to leave their farms at the weekend in terms of the Section 8 orders.

Williams said about 75 farmers were forced by members of the government-aligned Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions to retrench all their workers, but most farmers had just left the workers on the farms.

She said some of the farmers were still paying the workers in the hope that the situation will normalise and they will resume their operations.

President Robert Mugabe this week ruled out the possibility of giving the farmers a reprieve, saying the weekend deadline still stood and the farmers must go.

Commercial Farmers' Union head Collin Cloete said the union was not sure how many of its members had abandoned their farms in compliance with the government's orders.

[Clive]

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[Saundra Duffy]

Let me get this straight. Because they are white, these farmers are forced out of business and all these workers are laid off. How is this going to help feed the people and fuel the economy? We should boycott these creeps. This is worse than apartheid!

[Lurker]

Yes, it is.

And it's only going to get worse.

L

[backhoe]

Clive, I will start another standalone mass email, starting here- and I'll continue to do this. It should have more "punch," seeing all these stories the News Jackals won't mention.

AfricaWatch:

AfricaWatch: for AfricaWatch articles. 

Other Bump Lists at: Free Republic Bump List Register

[chainsaw]

Because they are white, these farmers are forced out of business and all these workers are laid off. How is this going to help feed the people and fuel the economy?

It will happen here in the US too, as soon as the UN gets control. This is the New World Order folks. Better learn how to maintain a garden on a roof top.

[Ann Archy]

Actually this is REPARATIONS on parade here. Rev. Al and Jackass Jackson will be coming to stir up trouble in our towns soon.

These black people are all going to STARVE, but hey, a few of the well connected got FARMS!! The farms will lay fallow (i think that's the word).

Evil is alive and going quite well around Earth.

[Ronin]

Anyone surprised here? Even a little?

Didn't think so.

The white-owned farms... those nasty remnants of colonial exploitation, are/were the only part of Zimbabwe's economic infrastructure that still worked.

Since they still worked and were still valuable, they were the only things left that Mugabe could steal so he could give them to his cronies and thus maintain his power.

The fact that those same cronies know as much about running a huge commerical farm as I do about brain surgery is meaningless.

The fact that thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of people are going to starve is equally meaningless (and, of course, is solely due to white racism anyhow).

Besides, with a little creative redistribution the starvation can be limited to those vile types who suppored the MDC, thus eliminating potential threats to Mugabe's rule.

Was this all predicted by FReepers and others close to a year ago? Sure. That's why no one here is surprised.