Maravi

(NEWZIMBABWE) City life struggle for white farmers

City life struggle for white farmers
by Charlotte Plantive
23/02/2010 00:00:00

TEN years into Zimbabwe's land reforms, lifelong farmer John Browning has found a job at a food company's factory in Harare, supervising the night shift. "At 73, you should not be working at night," Browning said. "But we don't have a choice, do we?"

He lost his only source of income when the government seized his land, and after years of hyperinflation his pension is now worthless. "There is nothing worse than having no money," he said, but added: "You can't be bitter. It eats you up."

Over the last decade, more than 4,000 of Zimbabwe's 4,500 white farmers have been chased from their land by President Robert Mugabe's most militant supporters: self-styled veterans of the 1970s liberation war against the white-minority Rhodesian government.

Older farmers have struggled to put their lives back on track, but younger ones have built new lives in Zimbabwe's towns and cities, where they have become mechanics, butchers or businessmen.

"A lot of us came to that stage where you just have to shut yourselves off from what happened in the past. We need to move on," said Hendrik Olivier, head of the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), which represents mainly white farmers.

John Saunders remembers the terrifying day when war veterans, after occupying his farm for a year and a half, threatened to take his five-year-old daughter Carolyn.

"The intention was to keep her hostage as long as I would not pay them," he said.

"Twenty loyal workers took Carolyn in my Land Rover. At that time a policeman arrived. I asked him for help. He gave us 10 minutes to get off. So we get into our vehicles and left."

In late February 2000, Mugabe unleashed his supporters on the white farms, which still accounted for about 70 percent of Zimbabwe's farmland.

Officially, the campaign was intended to redress colonial-era inequities.

But days earlier, on February 14, 2000, voters had for the first time turned against Mugabe, in rejecting a constitution that would have strengthened the president's powers.

Branded as the "enemy" by Mugabe, whites became the scapegoats of a government losing its popular support.

Despite the attacks, most white farmers decided to stay in Zimbabwe, even though those still on their farms continue to suffer intimidation and abuse.

"I don't regard any other country as being my home," Saunders said. "This country is in our bones. I just could not live anywhere else."

"Once in town, farther from the war veterans, we had more distance and I was able to realize my priorities. I had no other qualification but farming," he said.

He believes that most Zimbabweans didn't support the violent land reforms, which decimated food production and left the nation dependent on foreign aid.

"The basic people of this country are nice, it's the politicians who created a clique," Saunders said, adding that support from the white community was crucial to allowing his family to stay.

He rents a home for a minimal amount from a friend who left for abroad. The community has also helped find jobs.

For two years, Saunders has worked for a German group to help train poor black farmers living on communal lands.

Browning, who calls himself "unemployable," was recruited by a former farmer who went into business at a food company.

But to really turn the page, Olivier said the question of compensation needed to be settled.

Since the farm seizures began, the agriculture-dependent economy has collapsed. The population has become dependent on international food aid for survival and many of the farmers who once fed the country face destitution.

In November, the CFU said that most of the displaced white farmers were, like most Zimbabweans, surviving on little more than one dollar a day.

The government had said it would compensate them for property lost when they were forced off their farms, but not for their land. In practice, this never occurred and the country's economic woes have ruled out any hope it will.

"One of the sad things, farmers have still not received compensation," he said. "It is the final thing that is keeping the farmers from forgetting everything that happened."

"A lot of farmers say if you can't allow me to farm, then compensate me and I will move on." - AFP

Labels: WHITE FARMERS

posted by MrK @ 4:55 AM