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From SW Radio Africa, 6 January

152 of 300 remaining commercial farmers under serious threat

By Violet Gonda

There were at least 4 500 farmers in Zimbabwe before the government's controversial land reform programme began in 2000, but now there are only about 300 left. At least a million farm workers have lost their livelihood and homes as a result. In just 10 years Zimbabwe has turned from being the bread basket of the region to one of the most heavily food aid dependent countries in the world. Even though the unity government has been in existence for a year, farm attacks still continue and recently there has been a renewed push to get the remaining commercial farmers off the land. Late last month Finance Minister Tendai Biti Zimbabwe said that Zimbabwe needed US$45 billion to get back to pre-2000 peak levels and said security of tenure and production was important for agriculture. But despite these statements his counterparts from Zanu PF continue to wreak havoc on the remaining farms, including those that should be protected under the Bilateral Investment Protection Agreement.

"We have been informed that there is a target list of commercial farmers and this is deeply disturbing," said Charles Taffs, vice president of the Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU). "Countrywide, 152 of the approximately 300 remaining commercial farmers are under imminent threat of losing their properties," Taffs said in a statement on Tuesday. "We have also been told that the former Minister of Lands, Didymus Mutasa, is behind a number of the invasions." The violence on the farms have brought food production to a virtual halt and ironically some of the beneficiaries of the land have started leasing it out to evicted white farmers. CFU President Deon Theron told SW Radio Africa on Wednesday that Themba Mliswa, the Zanu PF Mashonaland West land chairperson and Vice President of the lobby group Affirmative Action, is threatening the new farmers with eviction if they lease out their land to white farmers. We were not able to reach him for comment.

Theron said the situation across the country is extremely frustrating and there is no help coming from the police or the MDC who are partners in the coalition government. The farmers union said Ray Finaughty, their chairman for Manicaland, spoke to an MDC minister and asked him to intervene on behalf of a family under seige in the area, but it is alleged the minister's response was that the farmers should 'take a stand and defend themselves'. "This is outrageous," Finaughty is quoted as saying. "How can farmers defend themselves against drunken mobs, especially when the police refuse to assist us, claiming they are unable to intervene in situations deemed to be 'political'?" Theron told us: "I think it was Minister (Elton) Mangoma who said that. It was out of frustration because he can't intervene to help because they (MDC) don't seem to have any power."

The CFU President said he cannot see any people investing in the country when there is still total lawlessness in the farming areas. "Until the MDC stands up, we are not going to move forward. If they don't take control of what's happening they are as ineffective as they will ever be and they effectively have no role to play within government. They may as well not be there," Theron said. Meanwhile a recent media report says Zimbabwe's Ambassador to Tanzania, retired Major General Edzai Chimonyo, has invaded a major banana plantation owned by Malaysian investors in Burma Valley, Manicaland province and has started harvesting their ripe bananas. This highlights what the farming community have been saying, which is that Mugabe's land 'reform' has nothing to do with land, and is nothing more that grand theft. 'Land beneficiaries' nearly always move onto the farms during harvesting time, under the guise of owning offer letters.

Several other families in the Manicaland area have been violently attacked on their farms in recent days. Rudolf du Toit and his South African wife were targeted by mobs and Ray Finaughty of Manda farm, was besieged in his home and given just three hours, by drunken mobs, to get off his farm on Christmas day. The 'beneficiary' of Finaughty's farm, with 40 hectares of tobacco and 11 000 chickens, is Winnie Mushipe, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe's head of finance. South African national Louis Fick also had his house broken into and trashed and property stolen on Tuesday. Police blamed him for going back to his farm, although he is the farmer with a court order allowing him to stay on his own farm. Another senior RBZ official, deputy governor Edward Mashiringwani, is eying his farm in Chinhoyi. The CFU says it is also concerned following recent statements by Robert Mugabe and controversial Attorney General Johannes Tomana, that the military should be deployed to help evict the last of the white commercial farmers â a move that would further scare investors.

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