Zimbabwe -- White farmers fear 'extermination'

News24 (SA) ^ | March 18, 2002

[Clive]

Harare - The shooting death of a white farmer overnight has spread fear through Zimbabwe's small white community, many members having already begun thinking about fleeing into exile following violence-wracked elections here.

"It's the end for us," said a neighbour of Terry Ford, who was found dead in the early hours of Monday at his farm in Norton, some 40km west of Harare.

"The white farming community is very frightened. People I spoke to feel we are going to be exterminated if we don't leave," he added.

Ford was the eighth white farmer killed in the country since early 2000, when ruling party supporters began invading white-owned farms under President Robert Mugabe's controversial land reforms.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which is generally backed by the white farming community, has recorded more than 100 deaths among its supporters since 2000.

The Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) said Ford's farm was looted by supporters of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF).

He called for help but the police did not respond, and when neighbours showed up it was too late.

"Terry called me around midnight," said the neighbour, who is alone on his farm after having evacuated his family.

"He was very upset, he told me to go and get the police as soon as I could because his life was at stake."

He added: "He told me, 'Don't come alone, they'll kill you,' and then the line went dead. I couldn't sleep, I knew deep down that the worst had happened to him."

Another white farmer, in Mazowe to the north of the capital, would give his name only as David.

He said: "Since Mugabe was re-elected, the invaders know they have a free hand.

"They gave me three hours to leave on Saturday. I'm still here, but I think my death will come soon and through violence."

In Seke, south of Harare, a white farmer named John said he was considering joining his wife and children in Britain, where they

fled after their farm was occupied by black settlers last year.

"It's not our homeland, we don't belong there, but the only choice we have is between exile or death," he said.

Mugabe, who led the nation to independence in 1980 following a bloody guerrilla war, was widely praised for the conciliatory attitude he adopted towards whites who wanted to stay on in the former Rhodesia, renamed Zimbabwe.

By 2000, race relations had remained surprisingly good considering that two decades after independence whites, making up less than one percent of the population, still hogged 70 percent of the prime farmland in the country, despite early efforts to correct the inequities.

But in February 2000, Mugabe was stung by the failure of a constitutional referendum that would have allowed him to seek two more terms, as well as measures enabling the seizure of white farmland without paying compensation to the owners.

With parliamentary elections looming in June, Mugabe played the race card, promising to take back the land from the whites and actively encouraging his supporters to invade their farms.

Only days after the referendum, pro-Mugabe militants began forcibly invading white-owned farms, saying they were protesting the slow pace of redistributing land to the majority black population.

Though many of the invaders were too young to have fought in the 1970s guerrilla war, they were referred to as war veterans, and their colourful leader Chenjerai "Hitler" Hunzvi, who has since died, added his revolutionary rhetoric to the cause.

Only some 40 000 whites remain in the country out of a total population of some 12 million. Among them, some white farmers still have a reputation of being bigoted.

Many poor landless blacks, on the other hand, view Mugabe's re-election and his vow to carry on with the land reforms as a long-overdue victory, since whites began chasing blacks off their land more than a century ago.

"Now it's the whites' turn to lose everything and leave," a beaming black peasant said last Friday. - Sapa-AFP

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[Reactionary]

Ah, yes, Stalinism has appropriated racist Nazi ideology in pristine Africa. That should shock "progressives," you know. But it doesn't. As in all collectivist ideologies, the end justifies the means.

Are white liberals also smiling with glee?

[Wonder Warthog]

"By 2000, race relations had remained surprisingly good considering that two decades after independence whites, making up less than one percent of the population, still hogged 70 percent of the prime farmland in the country, despite early efforts to correct the inequities."

Hmmm---so they "..HOGGED 70% of the prime farmland..", did they?? I wonder if it was "prime farmland" BEFORE the whites arrived and made it so.

[baxter999]

What's scary is not that the few whites in Rhodesia now face racial genocide but the source of this news. The source is the South African Press. South Africa, now that it is also run by marxists is not far behind and it has much larger numbers of whites. Note the glee when reporting the gloating "peasant". (The use of the word peasant shows that the south african press is marxist now)

And where is the outrage over the genocide in Rhodesia and the coming genocide in South Africa?

[Blade]

Let's not sugar coat the obvious.

What we're seeing here is a glimpse into the future that awaits American whites, unless as a nation we put a stop to Third World immigration soon.

[fire and forget]

Zimbabwe has gone to hell economically and in every other way since Mugabe began his "reforms." Soon all of European descent will leave. Mugabe and his people haven't seen nothin' yet.

[Clive]

" I wonder if it was "prime farmland" BEFORE the whites arrived and made it so."

Actually it was not.

The incoming settlers (Mainy Brits, not Africaaners) took the veldt red soil less productive land which the native farmers did not want and did not know how to farm.

The natives kept the rich black alluvial soil which they had traditionally farmed. I suspect tht the "peasant" was not a peasant as the term is usually knows. T he farm workers are in the main loyal to their employers. After all, like any employee anywhere, they get paid for their labour whether or not the farmer brings in the crop and is able to sell it at a profit.

The so-called "peasants" are actually Zanu PF thugs who have invaded the farms.

In numbers, the most victims are among the farm workers who have been displaced from their homes and are living hard in the bush and who as a result were not able to vote because they could not prove residence.

[backhoe]

And where is the outrage over the genocide in Rhodesia and the coming genocide in South Africa?

Utterly absent.
And the silence from America's Watchdog Press is.... well, about what I expected.

When they were outraged at "white-minority governments" their dudegeon knew few bounds. Now that majority rule is showing its fangs and proving to be mob rule tarted up in pretty clothes, they loose their voices.

[Jonathon Spectre]

By 2000, race relations had remained surprisingly good considering that two decades after independence whites, making up less than one percent of the population, still hogged 70 percent of the prime farmland in the country, despite early efforts to correct the inequities.

Interesting wording in this sentence, eh? Was this written by an American college student?

[backhoe]

Forgot the banner:

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[Travis McGee]

It was time for whites to flee long ago. Too bad the blacks will starve now, the good and the bad alike.

[BlackVeil]

The details you provided about the history of farm settlements are informative. You also mentioned the black farm workers - I saw some interviewed, and they were distressed. They now face chronic unemployment, and along with the white farmers, many have been killed by thugs. What do you want to bet that there is a famine in Zimbabwe within the next decade?

[nightdriver]

"Too bad the blacks will starve now, the good and the bad alike."

Not to worry. The good ol' Americans will come to the thug's aid by flooding Zimbabwe with food and capital aid courtesy of you and me. After all, we just can't let all those innocent people starve, now can we? (/rant)

[Yardstick]

Yeah, "peasant" is kind of a loaded word, isn't it -- and loaded with the kind of overtones that Marxists savor. The simple virtue of the oppressed rural laborer, etc.

[Clive]

Famine is already incipient.

Zimbabwe was agriculturally self sufficient, a net agrarian exporter.

Now, Zimbabwe needs to import 100,000 tonnes of maize per month but only about 26,000 tonnes is being delivered.

It is autumn in the southern hemisphere. The summer crop was a disaster, caused both by El Niño and by the loss of production caused by the farm invasions.

It looks like there will be no winter crop.

Some of the results of the invasions were:

Turning cattle into standing crops.

Destruction of standing crops by the mobs

Dispersal of the labour force into the bush

Farmers summarily ordered off the land before the crops were harvested.

Destruction of farm infrastructure

Spread of antrhax by breaking down fences separating domestic cattle from wild herds where the disease is endemic.

Spread of hoof-and-mouth disease by moving cattle that ought to have been quarentined.

Destruction of grazing land by arson of the veldt.

[Clive]

I should have added what I keep saying.

This is veldt farming requiring large farms and a high level of technology.

Market gardens won't work.

Yet the farms are being broken up into small holdings and handed over to farmers who do not know how to farm the veldt. At best they are alluvial soil farmers and at worst the are party hacks who have been rewarded for thuggery instead of agrarian competence.

So, for example, we have the picture of farm familys ignoring or dismantling drip irrigation equipment and carrying water over a klick from creeks in pails.

Large number of experienced farm workers have been displaced and are living hard in the bush or sneaking into South Africa while a much smalled number of small holders are replacing them.