Posted on 05/27/2006 5:55:51 PM PDT by blam
Mugabe seizes black farms to drive his maize economy
By Daniel Pepper in Zhampali, Zimbabwe
(Filed: 28/05/2006)
For years, Zimbabwe's white farmers have felt the wrath of Robert Mugabe, as they have been thrown off their land to make way for soldiers and ruling party cronies. Now, black farmers have also become the focus of his unwelcome attentions.
Lot Dube's crops of onions, tomatoes and sweet potatoes were growing nicely when soldiers marched into Insiza district, in the south of the country, set up camp and declared that all crops other than maize would be destroyed.
Robert Mugabe has ordered farmers to grow only maize
"They told us, 'We are taking away your fields from you' ," said Mr Dube, 63, who has farmed 10 acres, 80 miles south of Bulawayo, since 1982. The soldiers ploughed in the market vegetables which he grew to raise cash to pay school fees for his children, and told him to plant maize.
Just for amusement, they forced him to pick stones off his field, while neighbouring farmers - some of them women - who refused to uproot their own vegetables and fruit trees were beaten until they submitted.
That was in November. Now Mr Dube, and other farmers like him, have been told that they must sell almost their entire harvest to Zimbabwe's Grain Marketing Board, for a price yet to be determined, as part of Mugabe's drive to boost the nation's supply of the staple food.
"They want to feed the nation with maize," Mr Dube said. In fact, the government also plans to export the grain, to earn desperately needed hard currency to finance imports. To make sure the country's grain silos are filled, Mugabe has ordered his soldiers to fan out across the countryside, and in Mr Dube's district, they can be seen driving tractors.
"They don't know anything about farming," Mr Dube added. "They say they want to end hunger in Zimbabwe. But I think they want to take the fields for their own use."
For all the army's efforts, and despite the best rains in 20 years, even the government's own figures predict the grain harvest will be only half as large as in 2001, when the eviction of white farmers began. Zimbabwe was once the breadbasket of southern Africa, but has depended on food aid since 2002.
The economy has been shrinking for the past six years and last month inflation hit 1,042 per cent - higher than any other country not at war.
The economic consequences of the regime's failings are everywhere to be seen. Tourist destinations, such as Victoria Falls, are empty and supermarkets are stocked with goods too expensive for most Zimbabweans to purchase.
But Ephraim Masawi, Zimbabwe's deputy secretary for information, said reports of soldiers destroying farmers' vegetables had "never come to my ears". He added: "These people have invited the army to try to help them because some have no collateral to go to the bank for loans."
The use of the army to take control of the countryside has been mirrored by the appointment of military commanders to top positions in the civilian institutions, in an effort to strengthen 82-year-old Mugabe's grip on the country.
Generals, some still on active duty, others retired, now control the reserve bank, the grain marketing board, the electoral commission, the state railway, energy ministry, parks authority and other key institutions formerly run by civilians.
Jonathan Moyo, a former minister of information who quit the Mugabe government and is now Zimbabwe's only independent MP, said: "This is an admission that things have fallen apart and that governance can no longer continue in civilian mode."
He forecast a possible "slide into anarchy" if social unrest erupted into violence. The army's presence in the countryside is less evident in the north, where Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF Party draws its strongest support.
Gordon Moyo, the leader of an opposition pressure group, Bulawayo Agenda, said: "The army has targeted those areas that are potentially opposition strongholds. It is partly a retributive act to take over their land and send signals to the surrounding landowners. It's an act of intimidation, and a violation of human right of those people."
For southern farmers the military presence is reminiscent of the mid-1980s, when a North Korean-trained unit of the Zimbabwean army massacred up to 20,000 Ndebele, the predominant ethnic group in the southern region, crushing support for an alternative to Zanu-PF.
Mr Dube still keeps a handful of chickens and rabbits in a small pen in a corner of his farmyard, and has half an acre of sorghum wheat under his control.
Another farmer, Gabrial Nkala, 55, said: "We never wanted soldiers to come to our fields. We need agriculture exports, not soldiers."
GGG Ping.
Not satisfied with reading about the Ukranian terror famine of 1937 Mugabe has to institute one of his own.
I'm sure I can read this tragic story in even greater detail tomorrow in the Sunday NY Times. /sarc
The locust continues to starve his people. Where's the UN? /sarcasm of course/
And again history repeats itself. Hitler and Stalin are dead and buried- but their "passengers" have merely found new hosts.
But of course, in this modern internet age, there's no such thing as evil- even the Christians think of His Nibs, the Big Boss Bad Guy as only a metaphor.
My daughter was asking why, over and over, the same pattern plays out- someone "goes crazy", gets a weapon, kills as many innocents as they can, then themselves. Coincidence?
As William Tecumseh Sherman said, "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but three times is enemy action."
Thank goodness the powers outside the country insisted on majority gov't.
Mugabe is stark,raving mad.
And these folks thought colonial rule was bad.
I can understand why so many native African citizens cheered when the hated white farmers were evicted from their land by the government. They saw the whites as benefitting from ill-gotten gains.
But when you carefully analyze the socialist mind-set, this was really inevitible. Hopefully, farmers in struggling African countries will take note of this.
One bullet could have solved this a long time ago.
Oops, forget that. I meant to ping Clive.
Tony Blair should strip Sir Robert's peerage.
Some people need killin'.
Don't call dictators like this one "mad." Mugabe is evil.
Of course, people cannot survive on maize alone: it is singularly poor in nutritional value. Those poor people in Zimbabwe!
I also remember that Britain and the West helped bring down Rhodesia and bring Mugabe to power. They are partly responsible.
Rhodesia was once the breadbasket of southern Africa until racism won out.
Like Granddad taught me, "The only true stupidity is doin' the same thing over and over and expectin' different results."
Communists and socialists, take note.
All the sane world wants to know, where's Jimmy Carter?
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