Posted on 08/19/2002 5:24:25 PM PDT by blam
Mugabe's wife to move into white couple's farm
By Peta Thornycroft
(Filed: 20/08/2002)
Zimbabwe's first lady, Grace Mugabe, has chosen the white-owned farm she wants and has ordered its elderly owners and residents off the land, it emerged yesterday.
Grace Mugabe
Mrs Mugabe has picked the Iron Mask Estate, 30 miles north west of Harare, which belongs to John and Eva Matthews, both in their seventies. The couple abandoned their home at the weekend.
According to residents on the farm, Mrs Mugabe and a high-powered entourage visited the property last week, said she would be moving in shortly and told them to find alternative accommodation.
The news came as police continued their hunt for white farmers refusing to move off their land after the passing of a deadline set by President Robert Mugabe's regime.
Mr Mugabe's supporters have moved on to several farms in the eastern part of the country while the owners were in police cells. Farm equipment and personal possessions were looted, although police denied any knowledge of the crimes.
More than 20 white farmers were charged yesterday for defying the government order. The administration has ordered 2,900 of the remaining 4,500 white commercial farmers to leave their land without compensation, although 2,000 have refused. More than 200 have been arrested.
In Chegutu, 60 miles south of Harare, eight farmers, including the president of the Commercial Farmers' Union, were formally charged and released on bail.
Jean Baldwin, 72, was given one month to leave her property after pleading that her husband was terminally ill and the family needed time to arrange their departure. "We have nowhere to go," she said later.
In another case, in rural Nyamandhlovu, 40 miles north of Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo, 13 cheerful farmers, several of them pensioners, were granted bail, but were waiting at the local farmers' club late into the afternoon to hear whether they could return home before the next court hearing next month.
Before their court hearing, the barefoot farmers, several exercising in a small enclosure outside their cells, cracked jokes.
David Olds, whose mother and older brother were murdered by Mr Mugabe's militia on their farms, stripped off his shirt and turned his face and chest to the early morning sun to warm up after a cold night on concrete.
Police in Nyamandhlovu refused to let the press or the wives of the accused attend the hearing in the local magistrate's court within the police compound. The wives were told that the police were anxious about possible hostilities from people gathered across the road.
The nationwide swoop on the white farmers, including a woman breastfeeding a one-month-old baby, has irreparably damaged Zimbabwe's commercial agriculture at a time when half the population is on the brink of starvation.
Several hundred farmers, particularly in the provinces where Mr Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF is strong, have fled their homes and businesses, most of them for ever.
A lawyer representing farmers at the Myathi magistrate's court, also in Matabeleland, said his eight clients were granted bail and allowed to return home for a month to wind up their affairs.
This, the lawyer said on condition of anonymity, would allow them time to challenge the constitutionality of their evictions.
But in Bindura, 45 miles north of Harare, lawyers said their clients' bail conditions amounted to a conviction as, although they were released, they were given less than 24 hours to return home for the last time, pack up and go.
The country's most prominent farmer, Colin Cloete, president of the CFU, handed himself over to police and was charged and ordered to leave his farm immediately as part of his bail conditions.
Mugabe is the Emperor Nero of southern Africa - Nero had a taste for the ultraviolent, and fiddled while Rome burned.
Regards, Ivan
Until ALL of Africa feels the consequences of their criminal and corrupt leaders - they will not revolt or have any motive to change things.
In the meantime -- the west will have to step back, and let Africa be Africa... It is CLEAR we can not and should not impose our "culture and standards" upon Africa. "All cultures are equal and should be respected?
After all --- They HAVE achieved "home rule" and thrown out the wicked white man...
Semper Fi
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