MEDIA RELEASE                                                      FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

Commercial Farmers’ Union of Zimbabwe

 

5 January 2010

 

Zim farm sieges continue, military intervention to speed up evictions?

 

Another Zimbabwean farmer, Rudolf (Dolf) du Toit (69), came under siege over the weekend in the Rusape district east of Harare.  Du Toit, who has a chronic heart problem, was forced to fire shots into the air in an attempt to keep out a drunken mob attempting to scale his security fence.

 

            Du Toit and his wife Alida, a South African citizen, live on Excelsior Farm and are the fourth farmers to be targeted by mobs during December.

 

On Christmas day, Ray Finaughty of Manda farm, who was also besieged in his home, was given just three hours by a group of drunken youths to get off his farm.  The beneficiary of Finaughty’s land is Winnie Mushipe, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s head of finance.

 

On Boxing Day, Finaughty’s elderly partner, Richard Harland, whose wife is a chronic asthmatic, were relentlessly harassed and forced to sign a document stating that they would be off their farm by January 2.

 

Harland is highly respected in international hunting circles and is the acclaimed author of “The Hunting Imperative”, “African Epic” and “The Art of Hunting the African Elephant”.  The latter book contains a well-balanced discussion on elephant management and culling.

 

Target list of farms

 

“We have been informed that there is a target list of commercial farmers and this is deeply disturbing,” said Charles Taffs, vice president of the Commercial Farmers’ Union (CFU). 

 

“Countrywide, 152 of the approximately 300 remaining commercial farmers are under imminent threat of losing their properties,” Taffs said.  “We have also been told that the former Minister of Lands, Didymus Mutasa, is behind a number of the invasions.”

 

The CFU is concerned following statements by President Mugabe and recently by controversial Attorney General Johannes Tomana that members of the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) should be deployed to help evict the last of the white commercial farmers. 

 Tomana has stated publicly that the army is justified in deploying soldiers on the farms, claiming the farmers have disregarded eviction notices. Zimbabwean commentator John Makumbe[1]  said this latest military deployment will scare away investors.  “The role of the military is to uphold the rule of law – they should not be used for enforcement purposes,” he stressed. The CFU is disappointed that the transitional government has been unable to halt the violent seizures of white-owned farms.  CFU executives have repeatedly stated their willingness to dialogue with government to find a permanent solution to the ongoing conflict.  Ray Finaughty, currently CFU chairman for Manicaland, spoke to a minister and asked him to intervene on behalf of du Toit and his wife. The minister’s response was that the farmers should take a stand and defend themselves. “This is outrageous,” said Finaughty.  “How can farmers defend themselves against drunken mobs, especially when the police refuse to assist us, claiming they are unable to intervene in situations deemed to be ‘political’?” Prime Minister Tsvangirai, in his Christmas message to the nation, listed the transitional government’s five priorities as:   

• To Promote Economic Growth and Ensure Food Security
• To Guarantee Basic Services and Infrastructural Development
• To Strengthen and Ensure the Rule of Law and Respect for Property Rights
• To Advance and Safeguard Basic Freedoms
• To Re-establish International Relations.

 

On December 23, Finance Minister Tendai Biti said Zimbabwe needed US$45 billion to get the country back to pre-2000 peak levels.  He said security of tenure and production was important for agriculture and that production was still limping because of political instability.

 Farmers used as pawns 

Deon Theron, CFU president, said that white commercial farmers were now tired of being used as pawns in a political struggle. Government inaction and statements of military intervention would scare away possible investors, and only worsen food shortages, particularly of maize meal, the country’s staple food.

 

“The disrespect of property rights, court rulings and signed Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection (BIPPA) agreements, and the selective application of the rule of law also contribute to the unwillingness by investors to get involved in Zimbabwe, thereby hindering the recovery process,” said Theron. 

 

While government has claimed that the 2009 crop will total 1.2 million tonnes, the country needs around 1.8 million tonnes annually just for internal consumption.

 Ironically, white commercial farmers are not the only targets of the current wave of evictions.   On December 20, the Zimbabwe Standard reported that President Mugabe’s wife, Grace, has been linked to moves to evict 1 200 new farmers from a Mazowe farm to make way for a game park. Confused farmers told The Standard they had less than a week to vacate Arnold Farm a few days after Mrs Mugabe toured the area.   Most of the new farmers, who were relocated to the farm at the beginning of the land invasions nearly a decade ago, were extremely distressed and said they had nowhere to go. 

Injustices deplored

 In the face of the ongoing chaos, the CFU is heartened by the support received from black Zimbabweans who have recognised the vital role played by white commercial farmers in the economy and in ensuring national food security. In an article published on December 28, Phil Matibe, an avid pedigree Brahman cattle breeder, spoke out about the “disturbing injustice in Chegutu” and his “deep revulsion for the blatantly racist and voracious victimisation of one of Zimbabwe’s most progressive farmers, Thomas Beattie”. Describing Beattie as “an agricultural revolutionary”, Matibe said his respect for the elder farmer was rooted in the experiences and knowledge he derived from him during his tenure under Beattie’s tutelage as a farm manager. Matibe castigated the theft of Beattie’s property by Bright Matonga, then Deputy Minister of Information, who has since ruined the farm. “Today Matonga is nowhere to be seen in Chegutu, the citrus is dying, the women are unemployed and the revenue to the country has evaporated,” he said. Matibe questioned how a devoted Zimbabwean farmer, rooted in the community, could now be labelled as a colonial settler with no citizenship rights over a pseudo-revolutionary who had never earned an honest living and was only a primary school student during the war of liberation. He pointed out that if all the farms seized by the government were state property, it therefore followed that anyone who took that state property, looted equipment and destroyed productivity, causing famine, had committed a crime that should be punishable by imprisonment. 

Anthrax outbreak

 With respect to animal husbandry, the CFU is concerned that the ongoing chaos has resulted in another outbreak of anthrax which has hit the districts of Seke and Selous.   Dr Chenjerai Njagu from the Department of Veterinary Services has admitted that the department was supposed to carry out routine farm inspections meant to alert farmers and pick up disease outbreaks before they got out of hand but said they had experienced transport shortages. As a result of the land invasions, more than 11 million hectares of commercial farmland has been seized by government and Zimbabwe’s internationally respected agricultural sector, built up over more than a century, has been largely destroyed.             As much as 80 percent of former prime land now lies uncultivated and thousands of farms are derelict.  Up to 60 000 workers and their families have been displaced, many of whom were assaulted or tortured by militants.               Thomas Beattie’s Rainbow’s End farm, which used to produce about eight tons of maize a hectare (more than three tons per acre), is expected to yield less than an eighth of its production capacity this year.               Farms which fed the nation and generated vital foreign currency are overgrown with grass and weeds, irrigation schemes have been vandalised and farm buildings have been burnt to the ground.  It is a tragedy not only for Zimbabwe but for the entire Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. ENDS For further information: 

Deon Theron – President

Tel:    +263 4 309 800

Cell:  +263 912 246 233

E-mail:  [email protected] and [email protected]

                                                                                                           

Hendrik Olivier – Chief Executive Officer

Tel:  +263 4 309 800

Zim cell:  +263 912 235 640

Zim cell:  +263 11 407 037

E-mail:  [email protected]

 

Charles Taffs – Vice President

Tel:   +263 4 309 800

Cell:  +263 912 284 847

E-mail:  [email protected]    

 

Louis Fick – Vice President

Cell:  +263 11 216 062

E-mail:  [email protected]