A tractor and trailer brings labourers back from the Mvurwi farmland area of Zimbabwe in 2000. White Zimbabwean farmers are facing uncertainty about their future after the elapse of 45-day eviction notices.(AFP/File/Odd Andersen)
Posted on 02/05/2007 6:34:43 PM PST by NormsRevenge
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Zimbabwe's national security minister has told the country's last remaining white farmers that they will be jailed if they refuse to abide by a deadline that passed over the weekend for them to leave their farms, according to a newspaper report on Monday.
The official Chronicle newspaper quoted the minister Didymus Mutasa as saying police would be "unleashed" to deal with white farmers who ignored the eviction notice.
"Those farmers who do not comply with the orders to vacate the land will be dealt with severely," said the minister, known to be close to President Robert Mugabe. The deadline was on Saturday.
Farming officials said there were no immediate reports of arrests but they feared the worst.
Zimbabwe is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence, with acute shortages of hard currency, food, gasoline, medicines and essential imports. The meltdown is blamed largely on disruptions to the agriculture-based economy after the often violent seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial farms began in 2000.
Annual inflation is running at more than 1,000 percent, the highest in the world.
The U.S. State Department last year put Zimbabwe on a list of six countries where restrictions on rights were particularly severe, along with China, Cuba, Iran, Myanmar and North Korea.
There were around 4,500 white commercial farmers in Zimbabwe in 2000, when Mugabe launched the program of land seizures that has seen agricultural production plummet. Now only around 400 white farmers remain — and at least 150 of them were handed eviction letters in December giving them just 45 days to leave their land to make way for new black farmers.
Mugabe says land reform was necessary to correct colonial-era imbalances in ownership. The longtime Zimbabwean leader blames the more-than-40-percent drop in production on repeated drought and Western sanctions.
Once known as the breadbasket of southern Africa, Zimbabwe has seen its status reduced to an importer of its staple maize crop since land reforms were launched.
Critics say many of the new black farmers were allocated farms on the basis of political patronage rather than agricultural expertise, and lack the dedication and financial resources to make a success of farming.
The chairman of farming lobby group Justice for Agriculture, John Worsley-Worswick, said that white farmers were feeling "very exposed and very vulnerable."
Farming groups like the Commercial Farmers Union and Justice for Agriculture had told their members to stay on their land and risk arrest.
"There's ongoing pressure," Worsley-Worswick said by telephone from Harare. "We are expecting arrests as farmers go back today."
Mutasa said security officials would check this week on white farmers.
"It's the duty of police to see to it that those who don't abide by the laws are incarcerated," the minister was quoted as saying by the Bulawayo based newspaper.
Farmers were given a glimmer of hope last month when Ngoni Masoka, a senior official from the Lands Ministry, said they would be allowed to stay on to harvest crops they had planted "without any disruption in that process."
U.N. agencies estimate that about 4 million people are in need of food aid in Zimbabwe.
Last year, some 700,000 people lost their homes or livelihoods in a government demolition campaign aimed at street vendors, market stall holders and allegedly illegal housing.
Mugabe.
and the new head of the UN wants to stop the use of capital punishment or so I read.
Right after chucklenuts Mugabe gets his ...
A tractor and trailer brings labourers back from the Mvurwi farmland area of Zimbabwe in 2000. White Zimbabwean farmers are facing uncertainty about their future after the elapse of 45-day eviction notices.(AFP/File/Odd Andersen)
Zimbabwe children walk past an occupied farm on their way home from school in 2000. White Zimbabwean farmers, facing an uncertain future after the lapse of 45-day eviction notices, have said they hoped the government would allow them to harvest standing crops as promised.(AFP/File)
And we all know that Zimbabwe has advanced by leaps and bounds over the last several years./sarc
4 million people need food aid?
Why isn't the number 6 million? Unfortunately the only way zimbabwe is ever going to recover is by crashing first.
Anyone notice that these insane third world dictator types live along time? One would think that Mugabe could have slipped in a bathtub, or been on a chopper when it went down, but ohh no...
Evicted from their own farms for being white? I wonder if Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton will loudly denounce this blatant racism?
It wasn't much more than a few months ago, that Mugabe was trying to convince evicted farmers who had fled the country to return and "rent" the farms that were seized from them.
1 month ago.. Thanks!
Zimbabwe Poised To Welcome Back White Farmers ^
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1761887/posts
Posted by blam
On News/Activism ^ 01/03/2007 10:37:16 AM PST · 87 replies · 2,162+ views
The Guardian (UK) ^ | 1-3-2007 | Christopher Thompson
Zimbabwe poised to welcome back white farmers Christopher Thompson, Harare Wednesday January 3, 2007 Guardian Unlimited (UK) President Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe, which has mounted a six-year campaign to seize white-owned farms, is poised to allow hundreds of white farmers to return to their land as the country faces starvation and economic collapse. "There could be some 300 whites back on farms by the end of next year," Sam Moyo, a government land adviser, told the Guardian. "Most of them will be running commercial farms." Since November, 19 white farmers who lost ownership of their land have been granted...
Nobody cares about white farmers. Not France, England or the Unsited states, and forget entirely the UN.
The White man doesnt amount to squat. Now if this were black farmers the world would be in an uproar like they were when Apartheid was present.
That would be the liberal whites that helped Mugabe take over..
Most ALL the Decent White people left before 2000..
They are getting what they deserve, the white liberals left there...
Africa wins again...
I don't suppose we'll ever hear from Cathie Buckle any time soon.
When the white farmers are all gone these morons are going to
starve to death.
Thanks. I thought I was going nuts. Positive that I remembered that article and now this one says nope all whites must leave.
I would set fire to the farmhouse and barns on my way out.
Just a semantic thing, but these farmers, to their great misfortune, do NOT face an uncertain future. They stay, they'll be killed or imprisoned, more likely killed.
This lovely character was behind the farm invasions. He actually went by the name of Hitler!
The AIDS infected Chenjerai "Hitler" Hunzvi (October 23, 1949—June 4, 2001) born in Chiminya, a village in the Mashonaland province of Zimbabwe. Hunzvi is remembered for his militant leadership of the War Veterans Association, a group synonymous with Zimbabwe's chaotic land reform programme.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1369182.stm
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.