Imagine his shock when the very same person he had admired as a Messiah started the violent land reform programme in 2000.
At first Phiri, whose life had always been attached to his employer, thought the chance to become independent and start owning a piece of land had finally come.
But Zanu (PF) youth militia chucked him and his family out of Mount Carmel Farm in Chegutu. His crime? – supporting the then newly formed opposition Movement for Democratic Change party.
Hungry, unemployed, and with no roof over his head and a family of two look after, a distraught Phiri found his way to what has now become his home, a compartment in one of the disused tobacco barns at Chigwell Farm 10 kilometres out of Chegutu.
What irks me is that as farm workers we are the poorest and vulnerable people so I wonder how much threat do we pose to Zanu to warrant the deployment of soldiers and CIO operatives to terrorise us? he asks.
General Secretary of The General Agriculture and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ), Gertrude Hambira, thinks the reason why the state terrorises farm workers is that there are some elements in government who want to keep a lid on the human rights abuses they perpetrated during land seizures and election time. The only way is to continue to terrorise the victims into silence.
Farm workers are the biggest threat to some government officials who have turned their farms into political violence zones. These officials know that the farm workers testimonies can expose them, said Hambira.
They want to keep the resulting human catastrophe out of the limelight, she said.
GAPWUZ estimates that over that last decade, nearly a million people in farming communities have been displaced while over 10 000 have faced political victimisation either during the seizure of farms or at election time.
But government continues to deny the allegations of abuse, saying the land grab was done in a peaceful and transparent way.
SADC countries appear to have swallowed Zanus claims as there has been no action on the human rights abuses perpetrated on farm workers. This has seen government continuing to defy the rulings of the SADC Tribunal, a court set as the Supreme Policy Institution of SADC countries, ordering a stop to harassment in the farms.
Hambira said her organisation would continue to work towards exposing the fallacy that the land reform is with the hope of eventually saving the farm workers from the fear that they are living in.
Our goal is to see justice being done and it is upon us to bring justice to these people whose lives are being destroyed because some politicians want to keep their profiles clean, she added.
A Harare political analyst, who preferred anonymity, attributed the violent treatment of farm workers to the new land owners fear of facing opposition from the workers who had become used to working for a productive and well-paying employer.
Farm workers remain the most difficult group to deal with because they become attached to their employer so when a new employer comes in, they start to compare the changes and in most cases the new farmers will not be observing the labour regulations, among other things like paying very little. This triggers dissent against the employer and in this case the new farmers are using their political muscle to check any protest in check. You can imagine what impact it would have if we hear that workers at a certain ministers farm are striking, that would expose the official, said the analyst.
A GAPWUZ source said most of the cases the union was dealing with involved non-payment of wages and political harassment of workers by new farmers.
A Chegutu councillor, Edward Dzeka, said farm workers were targeted because politicians wanted to use them to further their political agendas.
Farm workers are beaten into voting for many Members of Parliament. These MPs know that farm workers are a vulnerable group that can be cowed.
The Zimbabwean ***** has established a number of Zanu MPs have used violence to mobilise farm workers into voting for them.
The late Bindura North representative, Elliot Manyika, was known for his reign of terror in Bindura farms while Harare South MP Herbert Nyanhongos masterminding of violence in farms around Harare is well documented.
Other Zanu officials who have been reported to use violence to earn votes from farm workers include the losing Buhera South candidate Joseph Chinotimba, and Shamva North MP and Transport Minister Nicholas Goche.
Post published in: Opinions