Despite Zimbabwe’s assent to a Commonwealth foreign ministers’ deal six days ago to restore the rule of law on white-owned farms, farming communities continue to be plagued by lawlessness, farm union officials said on Tuesday.
Five Southern African presidents were meeting in Harare for a second day in a bid to press President Robert Mugabe’s regime to halt the state-driven campaign of violent farm invasions, but units of heavily armed soldiers and police were actively involved in incidents of lawlessness, they said. “It is apparent that no orders have been given (to deal with lawlessness),” said David Hasluck, director of the Commercial Farmers’ Union. “Over the weekend, and as of now, there have been ongoing incidents of invasion and threats and prevention of work on farms.”
Western diplomats confirmed on Tuesday that late on Monday night, Mugabe was rebuked by Malawi’s President Bakili Muluzi, chairperson of the Southern African Development Community, the 14-nation regional economic bloc, over his failure to act against the mayhem.
A CFU delegation delivered a detailed report to the five presidents on the last 19 months of violence and harassment the predominantly white farming community has had to endure under by Mugabe’s militias, led by so-called guerrilla war veterans. Mugabe indicated he knew nothing of the CFU’s report, the sources said. “He asked the farmers, ‘why haven’t you been telling (vice-president Joseph) Msika’,” they said.
Msika heads Mugabe’s cabinet committee on the so-called “fast-track land reform programme.” Last month Msika declared, “whites are not human beings”. At Muluzi’s insistence, Mugabe promised he would ensure that Msika met the CFU on Wednesday to discuss the situation. Mugabe has refused to meet white farmers since April last year. Last month he said of white farmers: “If anything, they are next to he himself who commands evil and resides in the inferno.”
Also late Tuesday night, officials of the notorious movement of so-called guerrilla war veterans had a bruising session with the SADC committee. Muluzi, who had warned earlier of Zimbabwe’s instability “snowballing across the Southern African region”, was accused by the veterans of delivering a speech that “looked as if it was written by the British”.
The veterans emerged after the meeting to declare that they would continue farm invasions, despite the Abuja agreement, which lays down that there will be no new farm occupations. “Our peaceful demonstrations will continue,” said Joseph Chinotimba, the self-styled “commander of farm invasions”.
Twenty-nine farm workers and nine farmers have been murdered and an estimated 70 000 farm workers and their families have been made homeless since war veterans began their bloody campaign of farm invasions in February last year. In the last month 900 farms have been forced to stop all production.
The government has admitted that it is importing maize and wheat to meet imminent food shortages. On Logan Lee farm about 60 kilometres south of Harare Tuesday, a 24-hour siege of farmer Arthur Harley, 42, and his manager, Angus Brown, ended, but only after Harley was able to reach “senior government officials” to appeal for help, said local farmers’ association chairperson Grant Swan.
