Posted on 02/09/2006 6:13:14 PM PST by blam
Farmers wary of Mugabe land offer
By David Blair in Johannesburg
(Filed: 10/02/2006)
By the time Vernon Nicolle lost his farm in Zimbabwe to a High Court judge, all his equipment had been looted and an irrigation system for 4,000 acres lay in ruins.
His fertile fields were reduced to neglected wastelands. The disclosure that president Robert Mugabe's regime will give some dispossessed white farmers back their land fills him with suspicion and incredulity.
"I had a gem in Zimbabwe, a real gem, and it's all been vandalised," Mr Nicolle said. "I find it very difficult to even consider going back."
All but a handful of Zimbabwe's 4,000 white farmers have been stripped of property and a community that was once closely knit is now scattered across the world.
Australia, South Africa, Britain and Portugal have provided havens for families who once tilled huge tracts of Zimbabwe and formed the backbone of the nation's economy.
Asked if they might return if an offer from Mr Mugabe was forthcoming, the refugees point to the immense practical difficulties. Many of their farms have been wrecked. Their workers also lost homes and jobs and have been scattered across Zimbabwe.
How could the workforce, the tools and the expensive infrastructure, built up over decades, ever be restored? And who would foot the bill?
Yet more than anything else, many farmers will never trust Mr Mugabe again.
As chairman of a farmers' association, Mr Nicolle, 62, met him after Zimbabwe achieved independence in 1980.
The new leader promised him a secure future and went out of his way to reassure the country's white farmers.
"I heard Mugabe tell farmers they had nothing to fear," said Mr Nicolle. "It was on this promise that we encouraged farmers in our area to stay."
Mr Nicolle was eventually forced off Gwina farm near Banket in June 2003. Most of his land was handed to Mr Justice Ben Hlatshwayo of the High Court, who has not proved a successful farmer.
Mr Nicolle's brothers worked on neighbouring farms and, between them, the family grew 25,000 acres of maize, wheat and soya.
In the late 1990s, the Nicolle family accounted for 24 per cent of the country's winter wheat crop and 20 per cent of its soya.
All this has gone by the board, helping explain why Zimbabwe now depends on the World Food Programme to feed its people.
Mr Nicolle emigrated to Australia, where he earns a living by making bricks in Margaret River, south of Perth and inhabits what he calls a "shed" near the Indian Ocean. "At least we can now sleep at night and we don't think about having our throats cut," he said.
Bitter memories of the ordeals inflicted by Mr Mugabe's henchmen also deter farmers from ever returning. In 2002, Peter Horsman, 71, lost the 2,200 acre cattle farm which had been his home for 32 years. He now lives in Portugal.
"How demoralising it would be to have to deal with the same thugs who did such unspeakable things," he said.
"How on earth do you get started again? It's just unimaginable."
I might consider going back . . . with the British Army.
"Farmers Wary Of Mugabe Land Offer"
Imagine that.....
Whites and Asians have been used as punching bags by the black Africans. Mugabe did not act alone. Many black Africans secretly wanted revenge and so when a leader expresses what they feel secretly, it becomes reality. Now when they realize the diseaster they inflicted on themselves, they all proclaim that it was Mugabe's fault and they never supported such a policy. Whites and Asians need to teach the black man a lesson. Let them starve and may the lesson be imprinted into their psyche for hundred generations before whites and Asians return back to Africa to help them again.
Let's all go back to Starnesville. It was so wonderful there./s
Sorry, but whites should leave the whole continent of Africa. No hope do I see for freedom there in the short term.
Mr. Nicolle is lucky to still be alive.
Three words just about sums it up:
Charlie Brown
Lucy
Football
Don't.go.back
I think it's shameful that the US has not offered sanctuary to white farmers from Zimbabwe or South Africa. Those are immigrants who would definitely be an asset to our nation.
At least other countries are stepping up to the plate.
http://www.africantears.netfirms.com/thisweek.shtml
(sorry, don't know how to do a live link).
What is that saying?
"Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me."
The new black government drove the whites out, the ones the Mau Mau didn't murder. It didn't take long for the them to see the mistake they made and they asked the whites back. Some did return but I haven't kept up on what happened after that. There was a documentary on TV about this once. Things were in a terrible state in that country after the *oppressive* white people were removed.
Whites who are considering going back to Zimbabwe should remember the old saying: "A fool and his life are soon parted."
I seeem to rmember that the Mau Mau were a militant African nationalist movement active in Kenya during the 1950s whose main aim was to remove British rule and European settlers from the country.
That was actually four words, but I can't argue with the sentiment.
I have only followed this on and off again. I'm not sure what you are saying. The United States refused to allow the farmers visas? They were refused entry?
Or did you mean that the U.S. should have made an offer to the farmers... some sort of enticement to come to the U.S.? I think that's reasonable, but the offer would be have to apply everyone, everywhere, who find themselves in similiar situations.
-- from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
bttt
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