As the shutter snapped, shouts erupted from the nearby mango orchard,and three figures came dashing towards us. "Come here. Come here. We’regoing to shoot you." We heard the dull thump of birdshot being fired.The war veterans Robert Mugabe’s foot soldiers in the 1970s war ofindependence moved with surprising speed. But they had coils of razorwire to negotiate, an impediment the ex-farmer had coolly considered.
Mr Freeth, a tall man with a clipped moustache and the bearing of a military officer, calmly advised: "I think we better go."
We hastily retreated to the improbable safety of Mr Freeth’s farmstead the home he was still allowed to live in, surrounded by a cottagegarden. The voices gradually receded. Foiled by the razor wire, theveterans’ shouts receded. "Stop. Stop. We want to cut off your heads."
Anticipating a follow-up visit from a truckload of veterans, Mr Freethurged us to leave for Harare. Foreign journalists are banned fromZimbabwe and face automatic imprisonment in the capital’scholera-plagued and overcrowded jails.
Speaking from bitter experience, Mr Freeth, who places his faith in Godrather than Zimbabwe’s dubious justice system, said there was notelling how the veterans might retaliate.
Led by a thug with the unlikely name of Landmine Shamuyarira, thebrother of a former information minister in Mugabe’s old government,the veterans had waged a long campaign of violence and intimidationagainst Mr Freeth, his elderly father-in-law Mike Campbell and theirfamilies.
Several of Mr Freeth’s 100 or so farm workers, who last month repelledthe militia, had been arrested and beaten by compliant police. In anearlier assault, Mr Freeth received a fractured skull. He maintains thepolice are taking their orders from Landmine and his politician brother.
In Chegutu district, south-west of Harare, violence against whitefarmers and their workers has intensified in recent months asapparently desperate Zanu(PF) politicians scramble over the spoils ofpower, possibly anticipating that the opportunity to do so may be fastreceding as the "inclusive" Government gathers momentum. Eight of 15farmers, including the Campbells, have been forced off.
MDC leader and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, who in a bizarrearrangement shares power with Mr Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party, hasbitterly opposed the invasions, saying they are wrecking the nation’sagricultural base. He had ordered that they be stopped, but Mr Mugabeand his Attorney-General, the hardline Johannes Tomana, continue toencourage them.
While the invasions persist, international donor nations and the IMFrefuse to release hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid tobail out Zimbabwe’s failed economy and its health and educationsystems. Britain, France, the US and the Southern African DevelopmentCommission have condemned the invasions.
The seizures have turned Zimbabwe a country where 75 per cent of thepopulation depends on food aid from an agricultural food bowl to adust bowl. Few if any farms remain productive once invaded. Zimbabwe,the world’s largest exporter of white maize in the 1990s, now importsit.
Maize, wheat, tobacco, cotton and dairy figures are 25 per cent of whatthey were 10 years ago, and the nation faces ongoing food shortages.
Rural unemployment has also leapt, as farms become unproductive retreats for the rich and powerful.
Mr Freeth said it was clear the police had been operating under instruction.
"They turned up in riot gear and fired live ammo," he said. "Theyrounded up the workers who had resisted the invaders and took them tothe Chegutu police station. They were forced on to the floor and struckon the back with rifle butts. One of the men had been beaten with acable.
"There were witnesses to the beatings and the police chief inspector promised an investigation, but nothing happened."
When the invaders later broke into Mr Campbell’s house in the night, adecision was made by the families to abandon Mount Carmel Farm.
"Ben thought it was too dangerous to stay there. We had no help fromthe police; we were on our own," Mr Campbell told The Age from his newhome in Harare last week. "The High Court says we can go back, butthere is no law and order. That is the problem. Police ignore theruling; they are in the pockets of the politicians."
What is happening now at Mount Carmel Farm, Mr Freeth says, amounts tooutright theft. "One hundred and twenty tonnes of mangoes worth$US120,000 ($A159,000) planted by us have been harvested and sold. Youcan see them in supermarkets. More harvesting is under way. Nocompensation offered, not a single cent. Not to us, not to anybody."
The veterans also shot wildlife including wildebeest, giraffe and impala reintroduced on the farm by Mr Campbell.
The pattern is repeated throughout Chegutu. On the Etheredge farm,police shot several workers and jailed the white owners on contrivedcharges of refusing to leave the land they owned. The large-scaleorange grove was taken over just before harvest by Edna Madzongwe,president of the Senate and a confidant of Mr Mugabe..
Ironically, ownership of the farms seldom falls into the hands of thewar veterans but the wealthy Zanu(PF) elite. Mr Mugabe and his secondwife Grace reputedly own three farms.
The Age
Post published in: News