On Zimbabwe Farms, Push Now Comes to Shove

The black squatters who occupied the land of white commercial farmer Neil Conradie two months ago were belligerent at first. They stuck abusive notes on his gate. They called him a “white pig” and taunted him to go back to his “own country,” though Conradie’s family has lived in Zimbabwe for generations.

Gradually, the squatters calmed down and most left, returning to their home regions for last weekend’s parliamentary election. Now the crowds are back to rejoin the occupation of Conradie’s and other farms.

“I would like them to move off, so we can get on with our lives,” said Conradie, who grows tobacco, maize, wheat and soybean on more than 2,500 acres of land about 50 miles north of Harare, the capital. “They’ve made their stand. . . . But it is time they go home now.”

This is not likely to happen any time soon. The government of President Robert Mugabe has sanctioned the occupation of hundreds of white-owned farms by supporters and black veterans of the 1970s war of liberation, arguing that the squatters are demonstrating for much-needed land reform. The issue was the central campaign theme for Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, or ZANU-PF, with the president promising supporters more confiscations and more land after the election.

Largely thanks to rural voters, ZANU-PF won a majority in the parliament in voting last weekend, despite a significant showing by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC. Now, analysts say, Mugabe will have to expedite the redistribution of land or risk a violent backlash. The farm invaders have no intention of going home.

“He has painted himself into a corner over the land,” said Iden Wetherell, assistant editor of the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper and a respected political commentator. “He has unleashed the war veterans, who are going to be difficult to rein in.”

In the run-up to the election, the government designated for resettlement 804 commercial farms, which officials at the Harare-based Commercial Farmers’ Union estimate account for about $180 million of tobacco and other crops a year. The farmers, who will receive no compensation for their land, have until Sunday to object to the acquisition of their property. About 600 landowners are expected to appeal, according to farming officials.

“I will object,” said James Sinclair, who farms tobacco, cattle, pigs and maize on 5,680 acres that have been in his family since the 1930s. The farm “is my sole livelihood. It’s the sole livelihood of my wife, my son and his wife, and the 70 families who live [and work] on the property. It contributes to Zimbabwe’s foreign exchange. We do not feel it is in the interest of the government to resettle it.”

Farming officials say they hope that the land acquisition plan, which was made possible by a constitutional change pushed through the previous parliament, will be revoked because of the appeals. That way they can avoid a legal wrangle.

“We don’t want to take it to court,” said Jerry Grant, deputy director of the farmers union. “We don’t want to be seen as obstructing the government.”

They may have no choice. War veterans and ruling party supporters, who have occupied about 1,000 white-owned commercial farms since February, insist that they will not leave before being given what they believe rightly belongs to them.

The squatters argue that white colonists, whose descendants account for less than 1% of Zimbabwe’s 12 million people, stole the land from indigenous blacks more than a century ago. Now, the squatters want it back.

“We are going to continue to occupy the land because it has nothing to do with the election,” said Agrippa Gava, executive director of the Zimbabwean National Liberation War Veterans Assn. “The land belongs to us. The foreigners should not own land here. There is no black Zimbabwean who owns land in England. Why should any European own land here?”

‘Easy Pickings’ for Opportunists

Eliah Muwengwa, a war veteran squatting at a preschool on Conradie’s land that the white farmer had built for his workers’ children, says he will remain there until he is allocated property to grow maize and other crops.

“He can’t tell me to leave,” said Muwengwa, 45. “My orders have to come from my superiors.”

Although the inequities of land distribution are widely acknowledged, many farmers object to the manner in which the government is carrying out reform. Some express skepticism that all of the squatters are in need of property.

“The campaign has attracted opportunists,” said Nigel Saunders, who leases about 5,000 acres of farmland from his father-in-law to grow tobacco, roses and maize, and organizes game hunting on the property. “They see the farms as easy pickings.”

Jonathan Moyo, campaign manager for ZANU-PF, rejects the claim. He says the government’s aim is to acquire 12.3 million acres of land over the next five years.

“That is what the people who voted for us want, so that is exactly what they will get,” Moyo said, noting that compensation will be paid only for improvements made to the land.

Many white farmers fear that the type of violence and intimidation that characterized the preelection farm invasions might begin again. At least 30 people, mostly opposition supporters, were killed and hundreds beaten, tortured and forced to flee before the vote.

“There is still a feeling of uncertainty on the farms,” said Les Milne, who runs a security and protection operation here in Bindura, a prime tobacco growing region and ruling party stronghold. “Until that evaporates, we are not too keen to bring the womenfolk back.”

Some Farmers Relocate Families

Many farmers sent their wives and children out of the country to spare them the violence and intimidation. In many cases, farmers and their laborers were forced to attend political rallies in favor of ZANU-PF. Farm owners were forced to contribute food and fuel; their workers were made to undergo “reeducation,” during which they were indoctrinated with the ruling party ideology.

“People were told that, if there was an MDC victory in their area, they would be killed,” said Grant of the farmers union.

A Western official who monitored the election says there was evidence that at least 10% of the vote in Bindura had been rigged and that an extra ballot box containing about 3,000 fake votes had been brought to one polling station.

The European Union election observer team concluded that high levels of violence, intimidation, coercion and other flaws seriously marred the electoral process. The MDC has said it will dispute the victory of ruling party candidates in 20 constituencies.

Zimbabwe’s 4,500 predominantly white commercial farmers produce virtually all of the wheat and beef, and much of the maize, needed to feed the country. In addition, they produce tobacco, which accounts for about a third of the nation’s annual export earnings and 20% of its gross domestic product.

Grant says that this year’s tobacco crop falls short of projections by 66,000 tons and that the wheat yield is off by 80,000 tons. He estimates that the agricultural sector’s annual income is down by about $120 million this year because of the farm invasions and the disruptions they have caused.

As the crisis escalated earlier this year, scores of farmers fled the country for Britain, South Africa and Australia. Conradie, who sent his wife and three children to South Africa to wait out the election and its aftermath, insists that he will remain in Zimbabwe. But he is exploring business ventures outside of farming.

Others express confidence that the crisis soon will blow over now that the election has passed.

“Every time we go through an election, we go through the land issue,” Grant said. “It reaches a peak, and then it crashes.”

There also was hope that the new opposition in parliament will be able to redirect the government’s land reform policy. With more than a third of the seats in the 150-member parliament, the MDC can block further constitutional changes.

But some observers were less optimistic that the land issue, and the troubles associated with it, would be so quickly subdued. The squatters, they say, are unlikely to go away peacefully and empty-handed.

Wetherell, the newspaper editor, summed it up: “Mugabe will not be able to click his fingers and restore order.”