- The worst victims of Robert Mugabe's land seizures are
not the few thousand white farming families being evicted from their farms.
Those suffering the most are the hundreds of thousands of black farm workers
who are losing their jobs, being thrown out of their homes, often violently,
and who will make up an enormous new landless class. As Zimbabwe's parliament
yesterday considered new legislation to speed up the seizure of white-owned
land, Mr Mugabe's ministers made no mention of the growing crisis of homeless
black farm workers and their families. But trade unions, aid agencies and
human rights groups are very concerned about their rapidly worsening plight.
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- James Sani, 26, has been homeless since March 15 when
he was thrown off the farm where he worked in the northern Marondera area.
He and other workers on Chipesa farm had been badly beaten by Mr Mugabe's
supporters on several occasions. After Mr Mugabe won the disputed presidential
elections in March the farm workers were attacked with even greater ferocity
by a large group armed with iron bars, clubs and rocks. "They were
beating everybody," Mr Sani says. "People got broken arms and
legs and fractured skulls. We ran away. We could see them set fire to our
homes and destroy all our belongings. They killed our goats and cattle.
We were forced to sleep in the open, with no clothes, no pots and pans,
no belongings." Mr Sani is one of the lucky ones. He, his wife and
young daughter have found shelter in a small, tented camp for evicted farm
workers. But the camp, south of Harare, and the few others like it across
the country are housing only a few thousand people and are dwarfed by the
huge numbers in need of assistance. "We are happy to be in this place,"
Mr Sani says, proudly showing the rows of tents and the makeshift nursery
school. "But this is just temporary. I want to start a new life, to
find a job or to get somewhere to farm, but things are very difficult."
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- About 150,000 labourers have been evicted from seized
farms, and when their families are included that figure grows to 780,000,
according to a new survey by the Zimbabwe Community Development Trust (ZCDT).
"The numbers are mind-boggling," says Canon Timothy Neil, director
of the ZCDT. "According to our survey only 35,000 farm workers had
some form of alternative place to live, either on a resettlement scheme
or a family home to return to. The overwhelming number had nowhere to go,
and on average they had sufficient food for only 54 days. In two months
we are going to see this huge group going hungry. It is frightening."
The ZCDT survey also shows that more than 10,000 orphans and 14,000 elderly
people who had lived on the farms will now be homeless. "These are
the most vulnerable," Canon Neil said. "Across the country, there
are people living by the side of the road and moving to the outskirts of
towns. It is a shifting, roaming population that needs assistance."
The ZCDT is distributing blankets and food. Another group, the Farm Community
Trust, is providing food for 80,000 children in central Zimbabwe, and the
Farm Orphan Support Trust is helping children in the eastern part of the
country.
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- The Mugabe government has largely ignored the plight
of the farm workers. Despite assurances that the workers will be allocated
land, very few have been accepted for resettlement. The government did
insist that workers be paid "termination packages" by the white
farmers being thrown off their land. In the Raffingora area, 125 miles
north-west of Harare, farm workers have been paid Z$500,000 to Z$800,000
(£5,600 to £8,900). These are unimaginable riches to the workers.
"It is like Christmas. People are buying things like mad, shoes, bicycles
and fancy biscuits," one local resident said. "But much of the
money is being squandered on booze and women. I saw a worker offer a girl
Z$3,000 for a kiss! These pay packages will not last long. They cannot
make up for a lost job or a lost home."
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- International aid organisations are beginning to respond
to the crisis, but they are hampered by the government's attitude that
the farm workers are supporters of the opposition party, the Movement for
Democratic Change and therefore not entitled to new land or assistance.
The ZCDT leased land in northern Zimbabwe in August to give plots to 160
ex-farm families. But as 17 workers dug trenches for latrines, they were
arrested, jailed and eventually charged with "undergoing training
to become terrorists". Another problem for the farm workers is that
most have recently lost their Zimbabwean citizenship because their parents
were born in foreign countries. Most farm workers' parents came from Malawi
and Mozambique and according to a new law they were classified as "permanent
residents" in Zimbabwe instead of full citizens. Wireless Chipoka,
74, is a plucky, enterprising man who had worked on a large farm since
1955. He rose to become head foreman and had planned to retire on the farm.
"I was beaten by the war veterans," he says, showing a scar on
his head, "and they chased us away. Now we are struggling and we don't
know what to do. I would like to do farming. I am still strong. But my
parents were born in Malawi and the government says I cannot get land."
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- http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=5171
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