Farm Shutdown Looms in Zimbabwe/Thousands of White Farmers Face Shutdown Deadline Within Hours

AP | 6/24/02

[kattracks]

HARARE, Zimbabwe June 24 — With Zimbabwe facing a potentially devastating hunger crisis, nearly 3,000 white commercial farmers faced a deadline Monday to immediately forfeit their farms, some of which still had crops in the fields.

Under the government's "fast track" land seizure program to redistribute white-owned farms to landless blacks, about 2,900 farmers faced a midnight deadline to cease all farming activities, said Jenni Williams, a spokeswoman for the Commercial Farmers Union.

With hundreds of other farms already seized, about 95 percent of the nation's more than 4,000 white farmers would be out of business after the deadline passed, Williams said.

Scores of others had virtually stopped farming because of disruptions by militants from President Robert Mugabe's ruling party.

The deadline came as the country faced one of its worst food crises. The World Food Program estimated nearly half the country's 12.5 million people would need food assistance this year.

The hunger crisis was caused by a combination of dry weather during the corn growing season this year and militant disruptions on the commercial farms, which are about five times more productive than small scale farms, the WFP said.

The deadline came in the middle of the winter wheat growing season, with much of that crop still in the fields on some farms. The country's wheat stocks were running low.

"It is extremely tense. There is an atmosphere of confusion, disbelief and of defiance among those who have crops in," Williams said.

The deadline under amended land seizure laws ordered farmers to cease operations by midnight and vacate their homes by Aug. 8. Their land was to automatically become state-owned at midnight.

Farmers who disobeyed faced a fine or imprisonment of up to two years.

Since June 2000, the government has targeted mostly 5,872 white-owned properties for confiscation about 25 million acres.

On many farms already vacated by their owners, livestock, irrigation and other equipment have been seized without compensation.

State radio on Monday warned that security checkpoints would be set up in farming districts to prevent "sabotage" of the land reform program, an apparent effort to stop farmers from removing goods and equipment from their properties.

The state media has accused some white farmers of destroying property in a "scorched earth" ploy after land seizures, accusations the farms union denies.

Despite promises to redistribute the confiscated land to poor blacks, many of the farms have been given to loyal lawmakers and confidantes of President Robert Mugabe and ruling party leaders.

Whites make up less than 1 percent of Zimbabwe's population. Until Mugabe's recent land seizures, white farmers, mostly the descendants of British and South African colonial era settlers, owned about one third of the nation's productive farmland.

Land reform efforts since independence from British colonial rule in 1980 have been marred by corruption and mismanagement.

Critics say Mugabe has speeded up land confiscation to bolster his waning support and deflect attention from the country's crumbling economy.

Farmers say disruptions in a country once seen a breadbasket in the region has ended an era of comparative prosperity in which white farmers played a key role.

Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

[borntodiefree]

Sounds like it is time for a civil war overthere...

Where do I send my donation!!!

[Husker24]

Torch the farms, and let the bastards starve.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Pol Pot's got nothing on Mugabe.

[Phantom Lord]

"I'm gonna get me a shotgun and kill all the whities I see." --Garrett Morris SNL character.

[Technocrat]

This bunch of limp-wristed, jelly-spined farmers deserve what they get. Torch the fields and shoot the invaders? No. Slink off the farms and into oblivion. I'd like to see these people try these moves in Texas. That'd sell a few slots on Pay-Per-View!

[End Times Sentinel]

Or do we condone genocide if its blacks killing whites?

DING! DING! DING! DING! Correct!

The only protests this has drawn were extremely mild ones from Mbeki in S.A. who was afraid this blatant affront to all that is good and right might endanger his ambitious NePAD tin-cup-rattling scheme.

Owl_Eagle

”Guns Before Butter.”

[PLK]

I am certainly not up on everything, but this is the first mainstream press article I have seen on this mess in Africa. It's good to see AP pick this up finally. Of course, anyone with half a brain knows what's coming next: pleas by the libs in the senate, local churches, charities, etc. to "feed the starving Africans who have been oppressed by whitey." Ugh, dread it.

[3catsanadog]

And Bono wants the American taxpayers to send money to countries like this.

[SheLion]

This is awful! Why don't they report stuff like this on Fox or MSNBC? They had great coverage of 9-11, I'm sure they'll do Ann Landers justice today, the wildfires updates are frequent... but where are the BIG stories like this, the world ones? I wonder if the BBC is covering it at all?

[G.Mason]

"Where do I send my donation!!!"

You're 22 years too late!

[Bill Davis FR]

there's not enough whites to be a civil war...the blacks have the power and have won...

[Free the USA]

Check the Bump List folders for articles related to and descriptions of the above topic(s) or for other topics of interest.

[dougherty]

The white farmers need to get out of that hellhole as soon as they possibly can. Personally, I would have made plans to leave.....years ago. The media is silent on this issue, I guess they don't want to be called racist for covering the killings of whites by blacks. It's absolutely sickening. I hope that whole country starves to death, to hell with all of them. If they want to act like savages, then let them live like savages and deal with the consequences of their behavior.

[chemainus]

Where is Kofi Annan ?? where is the U.N. ? where is the Hague? come quick and help us ! this sounds like genocide !!......oh sorry , got carried away, these are white people who work for a living and no one cares....pardon me.

[chemainus]

you're finally learning....the war is the leftists and their scumdum proxies against independent people, families and nations....all for the sake of a new Orwellian slavery presided over by the U.N. and its scumdum followers

[eFudd]

More white farmers have been kill in South Africa than in Zimbabwe.

[Right Wing Professor]

There already was a civil war. The West backed Mugabe.

[buffyt]

I am re-reading HATING WHITEY by David Horowitz. I brought it back to Ca. with me yesterday from our other home in Tex. I think this article will add extra emphasis to his writings as I re-read them. Only hate crime is when the victim isn't a white, male, Christian, etc. Can't be a hate crime if the victim is white?????