Violent land reform youth corps wallow in poverty
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 03 September 2010 18:36
MUZA Fredrick’s desperate situation hardly makes him recognisable as one of
the vanguards of President Robert Mugabe’s often violent land reform that
has seen politically linked chefs enjoying rich pickings.
Now in his early 30s, Fredrick says he was part of youth corps who were at
the forefront of evictions that began in 2000, rampaging from farm to farm
to displace white commercial farmers who were forced to make way for
beneficiaries of the land reform programme.
Today, living on handouts, Frederick’s life has become a daily struggle for
survival at Insingisi Farm near Bindura, about 80km north-east of Harare.
The returns promised by politicians who encouraged him in the invasions have
not materialised and he lives a pauper’s life.
Fredrick and his friends say they have been reduced to casual labourers by
Dick Mafios, the new owner who they helped grab the farm. He now pays them
US$1,30 a day for occasional jobs.
Mafios, the Zanu PF provincial chairman for Mashonaland Central, is related
to Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment minister and MP for
Mount Darwin South, Saviour Kasukuwere.
Commercial Farmers Union president Deon Theron said Collin Taylor, the
former owner of Insingisi farm, is now in Zambia after skipping the country
like most farmers traumatised by the violence accompanying the farm
invasions.
Fredrick was part of a militia that invaded the farm in 2000 and stopped
Taylor’s labour force from harvesting a ripening citrus crop meant for
export to make way for Mafios.
“We arrived in Bindura in 2000 after some politicians approached us and
requested that we help them grab land from white farmers,” said Fredrick,
explaining how he ended up in his situation. “You know that this was the
time when we started taking our land and occupying it.”
“They said ‘boys come and help us take land from the white farmers’ and that
is when we joined in from Mt Darwin in our hundreds as youths. We were
excited and the promise was that we would also get pieces of land which we
could farm on,” Fredrick told the Zimbabwe Independent last week, likening
his situation to a hunting dog that is denied the right to even eat the skin
of its prey.
“As years went by, no land was given to us until now. If we try to raise our
concerns we are told that the bosses are also struggling as they don’t have
inputs and so forth. Besides, we will never be taken seriously because the
foreman lives in such squalid conditions.”
The married father of two represents the plight of thousands of youths and
militant veterans of the liberation war still loyal to Mugabe who were at
the forefront of the violent campaign, but have turned destitute after being
dumped by the new owners.
Mafios acknowledged that his farm workers had no access to clean water, but
denied that youths were taken from Mt Darwin during the 2000 farm invasions.
He said he suspected that panners looking for gold along the Mazowe River
were squatting at his farm.
“My workers usually get water from the borehole, but for the past two weeks
it had not been working and it’s true they had difficulties in accessing
clean water,” he said. “However, we will provide them with clean water that
we brought in bowsers.”
According to research conducted by the General Agricultural and Plantation
Workers Union of Zimbabwe, youths and ordinary Zanu PF militia contributed
to most of the violence that characterised the land reforms at the farms
together with war veterans.
Thousands of militia, some claiming to be war veterans, went on a rampage
from 2000 after Mugabe declared his intention to replace white farmers with
landless blacks in a land revolution whose haphazard execution left Zimbabwe
a basket case.
They burnt houses and property, assaulted — at times fatally – farmers and
their workers, looted livestock and vandalised equipment like irrigation
pipes and tractors. Led by the late Chenjerai Hunzvi, the war veterans
showed no mercy as they went around farms chanting slogans and singing
revolutionary songs while wielding axes and knobkerries, in an exercise that
virtually ground agriculture to a halt across the country.
Most of the farms have become derelict, as new owners struggle with finances
and expertise needed to keep production levels high.
A visit to the once flourishing Mazowe area shows a sad picture of failure.
Once vibrant agricultural fields are in a sorry state with tall grass
swamping the wheat crop and citrus trees that used to characterise this
area.
Farm workers’ houses are falling apart because of lack of maintenance while
sanitation facilities have collapsed. Actual farming is at a standstill, and
subsistence farming has replaced commercial, export-oriented agriculture.
“The owner of the farm can’t even provide us with clean drinking water,”
said a resident at one of the farms. “Our families drink water from an open
source – the Mazowe River which we suspect has raw sewage that flows from
Glendale residential. We don’t have any running taps, the boreholes are no
longer working. The toilets are worse as they are in a terrible state.”
At Insingisi, like most neighbouring farms, neglect has taken over. Farm
workers and the youths who used to terrorise them are wallowing in poverty
induced by lack of productivity.
“The owner of the farm lends us a bucket of maize meal at US$4,50 which will
then be deducted from our monthly salaries of US$40,” said a farm worker who
refused to be named. “But to be given that bucket of maize meal one should
have worked for at least 20 days. The money is not enough to look after the
families. If we try other alternatives like gold panning we are chased away
by the police. So how do they expect us to survive?”
Another resident said most of the new farmers had little knowledge of
commercial farming and were hardly in touch with operations at their farms.
“These are not real farmers from what we have seen,” he said. “They come
from Harare once in a while and do not take part in the farming. As you can
see, tall grass has replaced wheat on these lands.”
Another resident, Patricia Muremo, said a lot had changed since the new
farmers settled in.
“People looted and stole irrigation pipes and farming equipment,” she said.
“This has really affected people like us who were left behind. Now we feel
the pinch, the taps are no longer working and we don’t have clean water to
drink or proper food. We use the water in this dam to wash our clothes,
bathe ourselves and the children and also to cook and drink. We are lucky to
have escaped cholera.”
Wongai Zhangazha