CEO of the JAG Trust in Zimbabwe John Worsley-Worswick told a media briefing in Johannesburg that the situation for farmers and farmworkers in the southern African country had become dire after the March 29 election — with violence on the increase and threats against them becoming more substantial.
Worsley-Worswick released a report called Land, Retribution and Elections: Post Election violence on Zimbabwe’s remaining farms in 2008 at the briefing.
The report gave an account of a resurgence of land invasions and a heightened assault on the remaining commercial farms in the country.
According to the report, at the time of the 2008 election, just over 400 farms remained in operation in Zimbabwe and since the election there was an extensive escalation in disturbances and violent activities against commercial farmers and their work forces.
This is not an isolated series of populist uprisings, but a co-ordinated and centrally planned push by the government to remove the country’s last few white farmers, to bully their workers into support for Mugabe… it said.
White commercial farmers were only one part of the victims of the backlash against this sector.
The focus by the international media on the white farmer has created a useful smokescreen for Mugabe behind which gross human rights violations can be perpetrated against a population of some 1.5 million farm workers and their family members.
This population represents what might be termed the swing’ vote between the traditional MDC strongholds in urban areas and the Zanu-PF strongholds in rural areas.
Worsley-Worswick, in the report, said it was clear that the attacks on farmworkers were totally political in nature.
As can be seen from all the information contained in this report, the attacks are totally political in nature, linking the driving out of the farmers to the defeat of Zanu-PF in the recently completed elections.
Farmworkers are a target as they were in 2000 and 2002, because of their possible voter allegiance to the MDC, the report said.
Secretary-general of the General Agricultural and Plantations Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ), Gertrude Hwambira said farmworkers were largely being blamed for voting for the opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and were therefore bearing the brunt of the ruling ZANU-PF’s retribution.
The situation for farmworkers is really pathetic … they discipline them because they voted for the opposition, she said.
Many farm workers had fled to the bush to escape reprisal attacks and those responsible for the attacks were militia who were given army uniforms.
It is evident that these reports indicate a widespread and systematic campaign, far from any suggestion that these are spontaneous land invasions, the report said.
The attitude of the Zimbabwean police was described as ambivalent by the report though there had been a more concerted effort to deal with the invasions and the violence.
However, it is equally evident that there is a hidden hand’ behind the invasions that ties the hand of the ZRP Ã…Â Zimbabwean Republic PoliceÆin most instances.
Once again, the rhetoric of land’ hides the widespread and systematic violation of human rights in Zimbabwe, it said.
Worsley-Worswick said the situation in Zimbabwe was worsening and he expressed concern about the lack of resolve in African leadership to find a solution to the current impasse.
If the leadership in southern Africa are not going to do anything about it, then its up to the people to do something about the leadership, he said.
South Africa held the key to resolving the situation, he said, and his message to all South Africans was to put pressure on government to take more decisive action.
Worsley-Worswick said the situation needed to be resolved before it reached genocidal proportions.
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