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Land, retribution and elections: Post election violence on Zimbabwe's remaining farms 2008
Justice for Agriculture (JAG) and the Research and Advocacy Unit (Idasa)
May 2008

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Introduction

On March 29, 2008 the Zimbabwean people voted Zanu PF out of power. Today, for the first time in its 28-year rule, Zanu PF no longer has a parliamentary majority despite a concerted election campaign of vote-buying, electoral roll tampering, voter intimidation and general use of brute force. At the time of writing this report, a full month after the harmonised elections, the results of the presidential election have only just been released and the illegal recount of several House of Assembly constituencies has brought Zanu PF no relief.

The last time Zanu PF officially lost a national vote was in 2000, when the people voted 'no' in a referendum for a constitution which amongst other things would have extended the executive powers of the President. Within a few days of that referendum defeat the first of the now infamous commercial farm invasions had begun, and these soon turned into a massive and systematic nation-wide campaign to intimidate a sizable but vulnerable section of the population into support for the ruling party. All this is described in some detail n the JAG and GAPWUZ report Destruction of Zimbabwe's backbone industry in support of political power to which this report should be considered an addendum.

It should come then as no surprise that the immediate aftermath of Zanu PF's 2008 election defeat should include drastic consequences for the few remaining commercial farmers and their workers. Having maintained a slow erosion of the remaining commercial farms for the last few years, the Government of Zimbabwe has once again heightened its assault on these, its least wanted of citizens. The scale of this recent backlash has remained hidden from view until now. It is the aim of this report to make the current surge in invasions and human rights violations on the farms visible for what it is: violent, widespread and systematic. At least one-third of the remaining commercial farms have reported major disturbances in the last three weeks.

There have already been several reports in the local and international media highlighting this surge in farm invasions. However, what these reports do not make clear is the large scale of these invasions. This is not an isolated series of populist uprisings, but a co-ordinated and centrally planned push by the Government to remove the country's last few white farmers, to bully their workers into support for Mugabe ahead of the presidential election run-off, and to further extend the system of political patronage where farms are confiscated from farmers and given to the party faithful in exchange for continued support. The continued holding of the land is entirely dependent on continued support of the party.¹

It must be firmly stressed that the methods used in the current political exploitation of the land issue, namely the violence towards white and black commercial farmers and their work forces as well as the political "re-education," mass psychological torture, pungwes, human rights violations and so on, are a continuation of what has been happening on Zimbabwe's commercial farms over the last eight years. These tactics are well known to Zimbabwe's farmers and their workers. In the study that led to the joint JAG/GAPWUZ report "The Destruction of Zimbabwe's backbone industry in pursuit of political power," almost half the survey sample of farmers report a clinically significant level of trauma. Anecdotal evidence also points to a high frequency of trauma-related health problems in the farming population.

It is also important to stress that the white commercial farmers are only one part of this victim group. The focus by the international media on the white farmers has created a useful smokescreen for Mugabe behind which gross human rights violations can be perpetrated against a population of some 1.5 million farm workers and family members. This population represents what might be termed the "swing" vote between the traditional MDC strongholds in urban areas and the Zanu PF strongholds in the rural areas. There is also a small contingent of black commercial farmers whose refusal to buy in to Zanu PF patronage systems has resulted in their being ostracised, intimidated, and in several cases, severely assaulted. In the Zanu PF rule book, to be a "sell out" is as bad a crime as being a white farmer.

A few days after the harmonised elections, reports began to trickle in of an escalation in war veteran, youth militia and apparent military activities on commercial farms. These violations included the usual litany of crimes against this section of Zimbabwe's population: the barricading of farmers into their homesteads, assaults and abductions, arson and torture, political re-education and voter intimidation, etc. The outcome of the elections led directly to Zanu PF unleashing its complete arsenal on the electorate.

It must be noted that compiling this report was complicated by the reluctance of farmers and their workers to be identified, a reluctance due to the very real probability of violent reprisal attacks. For this reason, the majority of people referred to hear have been given an anonymous code. However, the authors of the report are in possession of informants' real names.

Note:

1. The Government offer letter to new farmers explicitly states that the offer can be withdrawn at any time. This state of uncertainty binds the new farmer into an uncompromising fealty to the government, as he or she has no legal recourse should the offer be withdrawn.

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