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A
Fourth Chimurenga, for gold
IRIN
News
October
01, 2010
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=90651
A new wave of
farm invasions in Zimbabwe has been dubbed the Fourth Chimurenga
(liberation struggle) - the fast track-land reform programme launched
by President Robert Mugabe in 2000 was the third - but this time
they are not looking to redistribute land, they are looking for
gold.
Thousands of
unemployed Zimbabweans trying to survive in an economic meltdown
that has lasted almost a decade have taken to unlicensed prospecting
for gold and other minerals along the country's rivers.
As more and
more illegal miners crowd the river banks, people have begun spreading
onto farms near the rivers; sometimes they find consenting land
owners, who often collude in the illicit enterprise.
Undocumented
miners cannot dig openly so they sneak onto the farms at night and
use wheelbarrows and sacks to cart away the rocks - which they hope
will be gold-bearing - to millers who crush the ore and extract
the gold.
"This is
a new wave of land invasions and we have nicknamed it the Fourth
Chimurenga," said Derick Gatsi, 24, an illegal miner or "makorokoza"
who made the 300km journey from rural Wedza in Mashonaland East
Province, in northeastern Zimbabwe, about a year ago.
"There
are now too many makorokoza on the rivers and alluvial gold is becoming
scarce; on the other hand, the farms that lie close to the rivers
are rich in gold and that is why we have turned to them."
He said some
of his colleagues had relocated to the Shamva district in neighbouring
Mashonaland Central Province, about 260km away, where "the
farms are also rich in gold."
Miners trespassing
on farms were sometimes caught up in violent running battles with
the farm owners and their workers, or were arrested when the police
swooped on them, but Gatsi said they were never prosecuted because
the police readily accepted bribes.
Ordinary Zimbabweans
have to contend with a variety of shortages - foreign exchange,
food, clean water, fuel, energy - because the industrial base has
contracted by more than a third and unemployment is at nearly 80
percent.
Zimbabwe's mineral
wealth has been in the spotlight, accompanied by lively speculation
that it could take care of the country's enormous debt, but the
International Monetary Fund has said this was unlikely - external
debt is projected to reach 151 percent of gross domestic product
by 2015.
Farm
owners collaborate
Elijah Mhuri*,
53, a veteran of Zimbabwe's liberation war, lives in Mashonaland
West Province, about 180km southwest of Harare, the capital, where
for years he has employed illegal miners to dig for gold on the
32- hectares plot near the Musengezi River allocated to him during
the fast-track land reform programme.
The mounting
costs of agricultural inputs and a breakdown in extension services
mean that Mhuri and other resettled farmers have struggled to earn
a living from their new farms. "I make more money in a month
[around US$700 a week from mining] than a farmer who gets a good
harvest from cotton or maize after toiling for a whole year,"
he said
"As a war
veteran, I support the land reform programme, but I don't have any
problem with resettled farmers switching to gold panning for a living
because that is one benefit we have from the land that we took from
the whites."
The land redistribution
programme forced more than 4,000 white commercial farmers to make
way for thousands of land-hungry blacks, but dislocated agricultural
production and turned Zimbabwe into a food insecure country that
depends on imports.
The government
has admitted that most beneficiaries of the land reform programme
have underutilized the land allocated to them. The Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC), led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai,
has repeatedly called for an independent land audit to determine
how many farms are gainfully used.
There have been
efforts to subsidize inputs and more land has been planted; around
1.68 million people are expected to be in need of food aid in the
pre-harvest season for 2010/11, compared to about 3.5 million people
in 2009/10.
Impact
on agriculture
Some farmers
are concerned about the impact of illegal mining on the environment
and food security - river banks are becoming severely eroded, affecting
water flow, and mining on fertile land means less food is being
produced.
Rodrick Masango,
60, a war veteran who was allocated a 40-hectares plot, said he
was being harassed by illegal miners, who had brought down his fence,
stolen livestock and tractor parts, and had ruined land he prepared
for planting.
"I have
made several reports to the police to flush out these illegal gold
panners, but even though some raids have been made, the invaders
keep coming back to dig up my farm. I don't have enough money to
employ full-time security personnel," Masango told IRIN.
Innocent Makwiramiti,
a Harare-based economist and former head of the Zimbabwe National
Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC), said poverty was driving illegal miners
to exploit farmland.
"These
miners are desperately looking for opportunities to make a living;
illegal alluvial gold panning is no longer lucrative because of
the intense competition among the miners and the destruction of
the rivers," Makwiramiti told IRIN.
He said the
move to dig for gold on farms threatened the land reform programme.
"The government has always said the land reform programme was
meant to boost food production by subsistence [farmers], and the
new crop of commercial farmers, but if trends like the illegal invasions
of farms by gold miners continue, I don't see how that will happen."
Last week the
Zimbabwean authorities reportedly arrested five Russian nationals
for illegal mining.
* Not his real
name
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