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Mugabe seizes black farms
For years, Zimbabwe's white farmers have felt the wrath of Robert Mugabe, as they have been thrown off their land to make way for soldiers and ruling party cronies. Now, long-standing black farmers have also become the focus of his unwelcome attentions.
- By Daniel Pepper, The Telegraph Group Limited
- Published: 00:00 May 29, 2006
Zhampali: For years, Zimbabwe's white farmers have felt the wrath of Robert Mugabe, as they have been thrown off their land to make way for soldiers and ruling party cronies. Now, long-standing black farmers have also become the focus of his unwelcome attentions.
Lot Dube's crops of onions, tomatoes and sweet potatoes were growing nicely when soldiers marched into Insiza district, in the south of the country, set up camp and declared that all crops other than maize would be destroyed.
"They told us, 'We are taking away your fields from you'," said Dube, 63, who has farmed 4 hectares, 129km south of Bulawayo, since 1982. The soldiers ploughed up the vegetables which he grew to raise cash to pay school fees for his children, and told him to plant maize.
For the sheer amusement of it, soldiers forced him to pick stones off his field, while neighbouring farmers some of them women who refused to uproot their own vegetables and fruit trees were beaten until they submitted.
That was last November. Now Dube, and other farmers like him, have been told that they must sell most of their harvest to Zimbabwe's Grain Marketing Board, for a price yet to be determined, as part of Mugabe's drive to boost the nation's supply of the basic food.
"They want to feed the nation with maize," Dube said. In fact, the government also plans to export the grain, to earn desperately needed currency to finance imports. To make sure the country's grain silos are filled, Mugabe has ordered his soldiers to fan out across the countryside, and in Dube's district, they can be seen guarding roads and driving tractors.
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