Pigs, crocs starve in new land grab

At Friedawil farm near Chinhoyi Edward Mashiringwani, a deputy governor of the Reserve Bank, has once again moved onto the farm with about 15 guards who beat up one of the resident guards.

They arrived mid morning Friday and began targeting our senior staff, issuing threats and chasing them away, said the farmer, Louis Fick, who is struggling to maintain farming operations in the face of continuous harassment.

Mashiringwanis employees have also locked the gates leading to the pigsties and crocodile enclosures and are refusing to allow food and water to be taken to the animals.

This has gone on for two days now and the situation is desperate, said Fick.

We have about 1 000 pigs at this stage and 10 sows are in maternity. There are also about 100 piglets, some just a few days old, the rest under three weeks. Its essential for them to get food and water, he stressed. Pigs in maternity need about 40 litres of water a day.

The worst part for Fick is that there is no one for him to turn to.

I cant begin to describe what I feel, he said. Eventually the police came out after a long struggle but any members who tried to assist were reprimanded. The animals should be beyond politics but they are used as pawns in the game.

The situation is a virtual replay of April 2008 when Mashiringwani attempted to take over the farm, forcing Ficks workers to leave and refusing to allow his livestock to be fed and watered.

At that point Fick had more than 4 000 pigs, 15 000 crocodiles and several hundred beef cattle.

In desperation he called in the Zimbabwe National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, who were inundated with distress calls, but when they tried to enter the farm, they were prevented from doing so by Mashiringwanis men.

As a result 30 sows died due to dehydration and some became so crazed they ate their own piglets.

According to neighbours, the sounds emanating from the farm on that occasion were horrifying and Fick and his workers were severely traumatised.

Friedawil is one of more than 70 Zimbabwean commercial farms protected by the landmark SADC Tribunal ruling of November 2008.

Fick is a South African citizen but has had no assistance from the South African government, although he has kept the embassy here fully informed of the ongoing property and human rights violations.

On August 1, 2008, a Pretoria judge took the South African government to task for not protecting the rights of a citizen whose farms had been nationalised in Zimbabwe.

Judge Bill Prinsloo noted that the governments excuses for lack of action over the previous six years had been feeble and pointed out that Germany, France and Denmark had intervened successfully of behalf of their citizens who owned agricultural land in Zimbabwe.

Independent analysts are concerned that the South African governments failure to protect its citizens rights in Zimbabwe will impact on the confidence levels of potential overseas investors.

In Zimbabwe, the Bilateral Investment Protection and Promotion Agreement (BIPPA) with South Africa has become a contentious issue as a result of delays in signing the agreement. This has led to millions of dollars of potential credit to Zimbabwe being frozen.

Justice and Legal Affairs Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, said recently that his government was prepared to sign BIPPAs with South Africa – or any other country – as long as they did not result in the reversal of land reform.

Claims by Mugabe and his cabal that the land reform programme benefits landless blacks are not borne out by the long list of beneficiaries of stolen commercial farms an elite of ministers (and in some cases also their wives and girlfriends), senior security force officers, Politburo members, their family members and even judges.

Their main activities have been to asset strip the farms and to sell existing crops.