Zimbabwe whites 'must stop farming'

BBC Africa Service ^ | June 24, 2002 | Barnaby Phillips

[Clive]

The majority of white farmers who are still in Zimbabwe are legally obliged to stop working their land from Monday, according to their union.

The Commercial Farmers' Union says that 2,900 farmers must surrender farms in line with recent changes to the law, which give the Zimbabwean Government sweeping powers to take land.

Any farmer who carries on working their land 45 days after receiving an acquisition notice could face two years in prison.

The number of farmers affected represents about 60% of the total of white farmers who were in Zimbabwe at the time that land seizures began two years ago.

Self-sufficiency

Last month the government passed the legislation, giving farmers 45 days to stop working land which has been listed for acquisition and redistribution.

War veterans have spearheaded the government's land push In theory the farmers now have another 45 days, at the end of which they must leave their properties for good.

The government was not available for comment, but a state controlled newspaper said the authorities had rejected requests from farmers that they be allowed to stay on.

Some white farmers appear to be in a defiant mood and say they will carry on farming.

One said, you can't just wind up 50 years of work in 45 days.

Donors say the food shortages now affecting millions of Zimbabweans are directly linked to the often chaotic redistribution of land.

But the government says that by taking land from white farmers and giving it to landless black peasants, it is ensuring greater self-sufficiency in the future.

[T. Jefferson]

United States should freeze all aid until the farms are
given back.

[CatoRenasci]

It's bugout time. Pack a grip and get out. To anywhere, for now, then to Oz or the US or the UK. But for God's sake, get out.

We should spend not one penny, nor give a morsel of food, to the thugs now running Rhodesia. Sad for the ordinary people, who really havent' a clue what's going on, I'm sure, but the affront to the rule of law is intolerable. Time to make an example: Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. Well, time to get it good and hard in Rhodesia.

[monday]

"Note: If everybody dies in the first year of starvation, because there are no crops that year, it doesn't ensure self-sufficiency because there are no "selfs" to take care of themselves beginning in year 2."

The UN and the US will make sure that Mugabe and his hench men will not starve. It is our donor food which will keep the bad guys alive untill all opposition has starved to death.

[Ronin]

Sounds great to me. That would be the ONLY African charity I would be willing to contribute to.

[Future Useless Eater]

If I were having my land taken away by force,
it would probably have an
'accidental' salting, or arsenic, or gasoline spread
across all of the land.

[DarkWaters]

The self induced famine of the early to mid 1930's in the Soviet Union weighs heavily on my mind. Mugabe takes another Marxist tactic to its intended disastrous conclusion. How nice(sarcasm).

[coloradan]

This lends credence to the phrase coined by the first annual winner of the Milton Friedman award, unfortunately recently deceased. He didn't like the term "aid" and urged that it instead be called by the more accurate term, "government to government transfer," in which the poor of rich countries, subsidize the rich, and especially the governments, in poor countries.

[TheBattman]

Yep--just another great example of just how effective the UN is!

Where is the international outcry of anger at the atrocities being committed in this hell-hole of a country? Oh yeah---it's another case of whites getting their "just desserts".

[TheBattman]

I totally agree - no aid to that hell-hole sewer dump...period. If Zimbabwe wants to be treated like a civilized country, they should act like one....

[TheBattman]

>The well of our tax dollars must be shut off for this kind of foreign aid under these kinds of circumstances.

The well of our tax dollars should be cut off for ALL foreign aid..... I don't think it's fair for me to have to pay taxes to pay for some stinkhole 3rd world country...

Now, if I want to give to a charity or mission field to help people directly, that's a whole different story, but the forced taxation just to give it away to these political despots is infuriating.

[FreedomFriend]

ping

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Yes. Not a word is heard from the media while the leftist thugs are taking over, and disenfrachising (the actual definition) landowners, etc. But after they have run things into the ground (typically within a year in Aaaaafrica), we will be hearing non-stop about how we have to "save the children" and other such BS -- translation: we have to bail the bastards out again. The leftists and media are such fools.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

brace youselves,the US taxpayer is going to be asked, no forced, to buy food for these fools.

Yes. Not a word is heard from the media while the leftist thugs are taking over, and disenfrachising (the actual definition) landowners, etc. But after they have run things into the ground (typically within a year in Aaaaafrica), we will be hearing non-stop about how we have to "save the children" and other such BS -- translation: we have to bail the bastards out again. The leftists and media are such fools.

[sspxsteph]

How sad it is to see hard working people taken from their land. And how sad it is to see a government that is throwing darts at a bord to pick what they do next to tear down their own country. Can't they see that they are digging their own grave and not anyone else. Even people who have no governmental/political background can see what stupidity lies in the Zimbabwe government.

[FreedomFriend]

They don't care. It's all about racism, and their hatred for the white man. The figure that they will chase all whites out of their country, or make them almost as slaves to the government, while they later can receive aid from western countries. That's what it is all about.

[elmer fudd]

If I were a white farmer in Rhodesia I would take this oportunity to fertilize my fields with salt and diesel fuel and then leave the country for some place more hospitable.

[Threepwood]

Yep. I've thought long and hard about why they don't just leave. The best I can think of is that the whites there are tough people that are used to not being that popular.The morons in the media and leftist western politicans have dumped on them forever, and the war in 60's and 70's wasn't playtime either. Mix in the fact that most of those whites left are middle-aged with no experience of anywhere else, AND all their property tied up in now valueless land. It might well seem like trying to ride it out is the best option for them, what else is there for them? Refugee status somewhere? Starting all over? Where? Hard. Damn hard.

[Teacher317]

Note: If everybody dies in the first year of starvation, because there are no crops that year,

it will be the fault of the whites who were displaced. Count on it being used as the primary excuse.

[dasboot]

These folks qualify for fast-track immigrant status as political refugees to the U.S.

Where's the Bush administration?? Where's the red carpet? May I sponsor several hundred?

[Carry_Okie]

The leftists and media are such fools.

No they're not. This has been a screaming success; population control from the Slave Party and its UN lackeys at its finest. If anyone has any doubts of what is planned for the US as its family farms disappear and its ag production goes over seas, you have only to watch the preview.