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Report on Internally Displaced Farm Workers Survey - Kadoma, Chegutu and KweKwe Districts
Zimbabwe Community Development Trust (ZCDT)
February 2003

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Executive summary
Zimbabwe has the greater part of its population forming the agrarian community. Generally, the farming community used to be a peaceful community before the February 2000 constitutional referendum. The population of Zimbabwe voted overwhelmingly against the government's purported people-driven constitution and all hell broke loose. From February 2000 until to date, Zimbabwe had experienced the worst violence, torture, harassment and illegal eviction of commercial farmers and the farm workers under the guise of a land redistribution programme, which was later, code-named "Fast Track Land Resettlement" programme.

Lack of planning and the haphazardness of the process itself rendered the programme null and void of the initial ideas and major objectives of land reform in the country. Civil society in the country dismissed the land resettlement programme as a violent way of fast tracking disenfranchisement, hunger, starvation, abject poverty and destitution in Zimbabwe - an analysis that the government vehemently denied.

The reality on the ground is that the violence and lawlessness associated with the programme drove many displaced farm workers into the jungle. (By 'jungle' we mean remote areas of the country where there is no infra-structure - no schools, clinics, electricity, running water and the like.) There they are languishing in poverty and facing famine whilst the absence of formal employment means that they are struggling to make ends meet. These farm workers have become seriously impoverished as a direct result of their displacement and the violent eviction of the commercial farmers.

Non-governmental organisations, particularly Farm Community Trust of Zimbabwe (FCTZ), Farm Orphans Support Trust (FOST) the Zimbabwe Community Development Trust (ZCDT), have works established to respond to the needs of the farm workers and their families.

This report is an analysis on the plight of farm workers and their families and is born out of the need to know what is going on so that we can be better able to make our humanitarian response more appropriate. There has been a dearth of reliable information on the plight of these people. Jonathan Moyo, the Information minister has even denied that such a class of people exist. The survey aimed at answering some of the questions that remained unanswered pertaining to the plight of farm workers and the effects of the land reform in an intellectually rigorous way. We believe that it's finding can be defended as free from bias to the kind of politicking that has muddied the waters in the debate over the present agrarian reform programme.

Chegutu, Kadoma and Kwekwe districts house several commercial farms, which were invaded and later on gazetted for resettlement. Some are still operational (though at a lower scale), some have closed down completely, some divided into plots and some taken entirely by the powerful elite in the ruling Zanu (PF) party. The districts straddle an area that had both highly intensive cropping and less intensive livestock farms. While some of their commercial farms would have had large farm worker populations per farm there would have been others with considerably less. Added to this is the fact that the area had its share of real violence making it potentially representative of and appropriate to the wider Zimbabwean picture.

Therefore, the findings of the research will be used to make interventions more effective.

Recommendations
Zimbabwe’s viable commercial farming sector has now gone. Both white and some black commercial farmers and their workers have lost immensely from the fast track land reform programme. The government itself has failed to run a just and equitable land reform policy that benefits its people and the economy. It is now too late to do anything that will make sure people will have food on their tables without outsiders’ assistance. The assessment of the plight of farm workers and the ongoing attitude displayed by government confirms the belief that the government should accept responsibility for the crisis and resign. The long-term intervention strategies need coordination, integration and networking with a good government, its agencies and all stakeholders in creating a vision for the future based on a just, lasting settlement of the land question and on sound policies. ZANU (PF) has pandered to the greed of the new rich oppressors and closed its ears to the cry of the poor.

Assuming the government will not accept failure and resign the following recommendations to the ZANU PF government are made. They are aimed at making an immediate difference in the lives of the displaced farm workers.

• That food gets to these communities. This will be very important and should aim at preventing malnutrition among the children especially those aged below the age of five.
  
• That government allow these people to stay on the farms without harassment. This is because these displaced farm workers are confronted by a situation where they are forcibly being pushed out of the designated farms without anywhere to go. This is a grossly unjust practise because it punishes those who are innocent victims of a problem first created by the colonial governments as far back as the 1930’s. ZANU (PF) has ‘corrected’ injustice by more injustice.

Recommendations to a new government. These recommendations are made because it is clear the present regime is morally bankrupt. Nonetheless the problems they have created need to be addressed if we are to recreate a vibrant and wholesome community and society.

• That more information should be made available to the authority/government and its departments as a matter of urgency about the need for shelter and safety for the displaced farm workers who face a future marred by acute uncertainty.
• That assistance should be given to the sizeable number of the respondents who want to acquire pieces of arable land for crop production.
• That lobbying and advocacy initiatives be developed based on current and correct information about the plight of the displaced farm workers.
• That civic education become part of the advocacy process. Displaced farm workers are a people who are not very much aware of their rights and how they go about identifying and reporting human rights violations. ZCDT should alert NGOs in that field to start considering particularly the issue of polling constituencies of displaced farm workers.
• That the issues of human rights violations, violence and torture and how these impact negatively on the lives of the displaced farm workers and their families is addressed. It is going to be a vital arena of response in the future. Violence gets internalised if it not brought out but therapy and this issue poses a threat to national stability and lasting peace. It is a paramount concern that victim and perpetrator come to some sort of closure about the (recent) past.
• That the possibility of assisting the displaced farm workers with the payment of school fees for the education of their children be seriously considered. The financial plight of the parents means they cannot afford to send them to school. This crisis particularly disadvantages the girl children in the communities.
• That assistance in the form of finance and training for income generating projects is found. This recommendation is made in relation to one of the research’s specific objectives. After the formation of the displaced farm workers’ constituency, there is need to facilitate skills training so that the displaced farm workers are equipped with skills which can help them to start income generating projects. Meaningful work will have a therapeutic effect on these displaced farm workers and facilitate vital moral support as well as salvation from present impoverishment.
  

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