Posted on 06/03/2008 6:14:59 PM PDT by blam
Zimbabwe crisis: White farming couple beaten and kicked off land
By David Blair
Last Updated: 2:06AM BST 04/06/2008
A white farming couple was assaulted, whipped and shot at after they were given two minutes to leave their property in Zimbabwe.
William Rogers and his wife, Annette, were threatened by three Robert Mugabe supporters, who told them: "We are like hungry lions."
Dozens of Zimbabwe's last white farmers have suffered similar ordeals since Mr Mugabe lost the presidential election's first round in March. Scores of black opposition supporters have been murdered and thousands beaten, abducted or tortured.
After defying the two-minute warning to leave, Mr and Mrs Rogers took refuge in their home on Chigwell farm. A gang of a dozen men soon gathered outside.
"They started smashing windows and the front door was smashed open," said Mr Rogers. One of the men produced a gun and opened fire. "He fired a shot directly at us which went just over my head and close to my wife's head," said Mr Rogers. "He obviously intended to kill us."
The couple retreated upstairs and listened, terrified, as the gang began heaping together a fire in their living room, using the wreckage of their back door.
"We thought we would be burnt alive, which is when I said that we would come out," said Mr Rogers. He grabbed a shotgun and led his wife downstairs. The ringleader ordered him to hand over his weapon. Men seized Mrs Rogers and grabbed her by the throat.
Then the mob set upon both the farmer and his wife with sticks and pipes. "They dragged my wife outside and they were trying to strangle her," said Mr Rogers. "She managed to bite the hand of the man who was grabbing her round the throat.
"He started to beat her. At one time, there were at least four men beating and kicking her."
Bruised and bleeding, the couple were tied up and hurled into the back of a pickup. Finally, at least five hours after the first calls for help, the local police responded. Four armed officers freed Mr and Mrs Rogers, who were taken to Harare, the capital, for emergency treatment. They are now recovering.
They probably feel they have the right to ‘take back their land’ as this was pretty much how their ancestors lost their native lands to the Dutch and English settlers. (and no, I’m not saying it’s right).
I feel sorry for these folks, but the writing was on the wall years ago. They should have packed up and left a long time ago. I know it’s hard to abandon a home you love, but an erupting volcano doesn’t care — neither does a mob.
There is no hope for Zimbabwe. Outside massive foreign intervention (yes, I mean colonialism) its slide back into the stone age is inevitable.
South Africa won’t be far behind.
There's also the fact that they are idiots.
Yeah--and soon they'll be a lot hungrier, as internal production of food continues to plummet.
If you think this through, that might actually be a good idea. May Bert Rutan perfect the technology that will allow our children to escape.
are we seeing America in the second Obama term?
Just like the Jews should have left Germany?
Where would they go?
What would they live on?
Would the U.S.A. have let them in?
so are most of the other refugees we take into the country from like lets say Islamic Somalia?
The way America is heading, someday people may be saying that about you and me.
Why are they not taking the credit they deserve for their hand in what has happened in these countries?
One day they'll be saying the same thing about me here in California.
But hell, I was born here.
“I’ve said it before and Ill say it again; Africa was better off under colonization then it has ever been since.”
Very true. Some other parts of the world as well.
They didn’t.
For the most part, Europeans in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) took untilled virgin lands, setting aside native tribal lands as traditional communal property not subject to sale and transfer.
The problem was that -
1. The native population outgrew the carrying capacity of their communal lands, and they desired expansion into what were now white-owned rich agricultural properties.
2. The white settlers brought in farm workers from outside the local tribal society, many even from South Africa and Mozambique. A lot of these people are now a big part of the black Zimbabwean refugees in SA, Botswana, etc.
You're right. I don't know how liberals have programmed in self-loathing to such a degree but they have managed not only erase any bit of racial pride in white kids but also erased any feeling of human pride.
Does Mugabe have a policy of genocide towards white Zimbabweans?
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