- HARARE - Grace Mugabe turned
up last week at John and Eva Matthews' farm north of Harare - one of at
least 190 white-owned farms that are being handed over to relatives and
close associates of President Robert Mugabe. "I'm taking over this
farm," declared the president's wife, surrounded by a coterie of government
officials, senior army officers and young thugs from her husband's ruling
party Zanu PF. "We asked her what would happen to us," said one
black farm worker, whose identity cannot be revealed for safety reasons.
"She replied: 'Go and live by the river over there.'" To press
home the point, the police arrested 78-year-old Mr. Matthews on Saturday.
"I was told I had 48 hours to get off the farm and if they found me
here after that they would lock me up straight away," Mr. Matthews
said as he loaded his furniture onto the back of a truck. This week at
a Washington news conference, Walter Kansteiner, assistant secretary of
state for African affairs, rejected Mr. Mugabe as the "legitimate"
leader of Zimbabwe and called on Zimbabweans to "correct the situation."
The implicit call by a high American official for yet another regime change
came during a meeting on food aid to drought-stricken southern Africa.
It is not hard to see why Mrs. Mugabe had her eye on the 3,000-acre Iron
Mask farm. Tucked into a valley between two dramatic hills, Iron Mask,
founded by Mrs. Matthews and her first husband in 1967, is one of the most
beautiful farms in the Mazowe area. The house itself has oak-paneled interiors,
sloping roofs and a commanding view. Pretty cottages on the grounds and
two swimming pools add to the attraction. It is understood that Mrs. Mugabe
intends to settle her relatives on the farm. Mr. Mugabe's land redistribution
policy was meant to deliver white-owned farms into the hands of millions
of landless blacks, but many of the choice properties are going instead
to his friends and relatives.
A list, by no means exhaustive, has been compiled by The Washington Times
from information provided by the Commercial Farmers Union and the Ministry
of Lands and Agriculture, among other sources. It shows that at least 190
senior politicians, businessmen and members of the armed forces close to
Mr. Mugabe have been allocated farms. Many have been given several farms;
one senior member of the Zanu PF party has been allocated seven. Among
the beneficiaries are two of Mr. Mugabe's sisters, his brother-in-law and
his wife's nephew. Zimbabwe's two vice presidents, Joseph Msika and Simon
Muzenda, have both been rewarded, the latter with two farms. The outgoing
and much feared head of the shadowy Central Intelligence Organization (CIO),
Elisha Muzonzini has been given the farm of white opposition lawmaker Roy
Bennet. In Washington, Andrew Natsios, director of the U.S. Agency for
International Development, sharply criticized the reallocation of white-owned
farms to Mugabe relatives. "So they're not exactly turning these over
to poor people," Mr. Natsios told reporters yesterday. "It's
a disgusting grab."
During the past few days more than 150 white farmers have been arrested
and detained. They were charged with obstructing the Land Redistribution
Act by ignoring an Aug. 10 deadline ordering 2,900 white farmers to leave
their lands. Roadblocks have been mounted across the country to search
for farmers who have slipped through the police net. Most farmers have
challenged the constitutionality of the evictions in the courts, and a
landmark legal judgment last week ruled that the vast majority of the evictions
are illegal. Despite the rulings, police invaded Mr. Bennet's farm during
the weekend and arrested and tortured 10 black security guards on his farm.
They were taken for questioning at Mr. Muzonzini's CIO headquarters, according
to the farm group Justice for Agriculture. At least 16 of Mr. Mugabe's
ministers and members of his all-powerful politburo also have been allocated
land. Others to benefit are the senior government officials in charge of
distributing out the farms. Christopher Chingosho, the provincial lands
chairman, has been given six.
Since February 2000, Zanu PF youths, describing themselves as veterans
from the 1970s struggle against minority rule, have violently enforced
Mr. Mugabe's land-reform policies, killing 12 white farmers and many more
of their black farm workers. Setting fire to more than 10 million acres
of crops and preventing cultivation on much of the rest of the farmland,
they have precipitated a famine that threatens 6 million Zimbabweans, half
the country's population, with starvation, aid workers say. Up to 300,000
black farm workers have been rendered homeless. According to pro-democracy
groups, at least 30 percent of the white-owned farms were allocated to
senior government officials and businessmen connected to the president.
An additional 40 percent, originally given to landless blacks, have in
the past few months been turned over to Mugabe cronies
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