- Dear Family and Friends,
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- A month ago, I received an email from one of the last
few commercial sugar farmers still hanging on in Chiredzi. She described
how in April a convoy had arrived at the farm and announced that the government
were taking over their property and that the family had until September
to wind up their business, give up their livelihood, get out of their home
and off the land.
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- The government delegation then proceeded to enter
the family home and list all the things which were not to be removed as
these were also being acquired by the State. These included fans and kitchen
units and from the house the delegation moved out to the farm yard. Here
they took details of tractors, machinery and farm implements and said these
too were now the property of the State.
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- The delegation said compensation for the listed
items would be made "One Day" in the future at a price to be
decided by State valuators when finances were available. The farming family
are now, as I write, closing down their affairs and preparing to leave
their home and property which grows sugar cane, citrus fruit and produces
milk. In her email describing these last weeks, the farmer wrote that her
children are well but very upset with these events and that they have so
many questions about it all but there are not many answers.
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- This farming family are leaving to make way, not for
a landless Zimbabwean peasant, but for the daughter of a high up political
figure in the district.
-
- This story of what is happening to one farm and one family
in Chiredzi has been repeated hundreds of times over in the last eight
years. The continuing seizure of farms in Zimbabwe by the State makes less
sense now than ever before in our hungry land which has the lowest life
expectancy and highest inflation in the world. The story of the seizure
of this sugar farm is particularly poignant this week as tragic news has
emerged of how three people died when a sugar queue in Bulawayo turned
into a deadly stampede.
-
- Just a fortnight ago, I described being in a supermarket
with my fifteen year old son and witnessing a stampede for cooking oil.
The sight and sound of the rush, the pushing and shoving and the frantic
snatching is still clear in my mind. These events are being repeated every
day all over the country as there is virtually no food to buy in our shops
as the government continues to insist on price controls. The deadly stampede
happened in Bulawayo where many hundreds of people were queuing for sugar.
A supermarket Security Guard opened the gates, people surged forward and
then a wall collapsed. The Security Guard died instantly. Another man died
later of head injuries and broken limbs. A 15 year old school boy was trampled
in the stampede, his limbs were broken and he too died later in hospital.
-
- As a farmer who suffered the indignity and outrage of
the seizure of home, business and farm by the State in 2000 and who was
also given the unfulfilled promise of compensation, I understand exactly
the agonies of the sugar farming family in Chiredzi. As a mother of a 15
year school boy, my heart goes out particularly to the family of the teenager
trampled to death in a sugar queue in Bulawayo. Like my son, this teenager
would have been just a year away from writing his 'O' Levels, about to
embark on his life and perhaps go on to do great things for his country.
-
- In a week, so many lives and families have been broken
- and all for sugar but all because of politics. Knowing this and then
hearing of the standing ovation at the SADC summit in Lusaka makes the
events on the ground at home all the more tragic. Do the SADC leaders know?
Do they care?
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- Until next week, thanks for reading.
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- Love cathy.
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- Copyright cathy buckle 18 August 2007 www.cathybuckle.com
My books: "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available
from: <mailto:orders@africabookcentre.com>orders@africabookcentre.com
To subscribe/unsubscribe to this newsletter, please write to: <mailto:cbuckle@mango.zw>cbuckle@mango.zw
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