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The police beg us for food. What hope is there?
Ben Freeth, The Times (UK)
December 02, 2008

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5269748.ece

All around, the effects of the Zimbabwean land programme are affecting our everyday life. How can people eat when those trying to produce food on the land are still being forcibly removed? How can a country go forward when there is no money being generated from production to allow it to do so? I spoke to a friend of mine, Deon Theron, who is vice-president of the Commercial Farmers Union. A senior reserve-bank official wanted his farm and so Deon was prosecuted by the police this year. He was found to be a criminal for still farming and was given 30 days to move off. Rather than go to jail he decided to move off; but he had nowhere to graze his cattle. The cattle are starving to death. He has lost more than 80 in the past couple of months. It is nearly half the herd.

In the drought years there was nothing more devastating to me than watching a crop slowly die. The leaves start to shrivel and curl up. Their colour is slowly bleached out until what was green and lush and pliable becomes white and brittle. It is then dead. Nothing can revive a crop after that. To watch a whole cattle herd starve to death for no reason is something different, though. On Deon's own farm, the one that he was moved off, the grass sings and bends as the breeze passes through it. There is something macabre about that when just a little way away cattle are dying because if their owner allows them to eat that grass he will be defying the law. You can spend up to two years in prison for still being in your home in Zimbabwe if the Government has acquired it. Acquisition is simple. All it has to do is put a notice in the government gazette. You are not allowed to appeal against it in a court and after 90 days you are a criminal if you are still there.

Martha, Deon's wife, couldn't take it any longer. Seeing cattle dying every day preyed upon her mind. She had to go away. She wanted to shoot their cattle. You cannot allow animals to suffer like that. When there is no food to feed the cattle the choices become as starkly defined as the bones on the rib cages of the cows. We were shot at and beaten up with rifle butts and sticks and sjamkoks on the day that Robert Mugabe was last "sworn in" for another term on June 29. We were taking to court this evil law that is creating the humanitarian crisis now unfolding - a law that allows land to be confiscated with no compensation. We were abducted from the farm and while my father-in-law and I were unconscious with severe head injuries, my mother-in-law, whose arm they had badly broken and who had had a stick from the fire thrust into her mouth for refusing to sing their pro-Mugabe songs, was made to sign a bit of paper with a gun to her head. The bit of paper said that we would withdraw from the court. We didn't withdraw. The court is no ordinary court. It is an international court with international jurisdiction. It is the first time that the SADC (Southern African Development Community) tribunal has heard a case. And on Friday we heard that the court in Windhoek had ruled in our favour.

Even now, we accept it is unlikely that the Zimbabwean Government will pay any attention. But without farmers people don't eat. It's a simple equation. Britain recognised that in the Second World War. The North Atlantic convoys had to run the gauntlet to stop starvation. In Zimbabwe starvation is already in the air. After we were beaten and put in hospital, we were away from the farm for some weeks and our entire sorghum crop was reaped for us and stolen. The entire sunflower crop went the same way. People are hungry and there are no jobs. At a roadblock the other day, as I was bringing the children back from school, the police were looking thin. The woman officer there said to me: "I am hungry. Have you got some food on the farm you can bring me?" An assistant inspector phoned another friend of mine the same day asking for food too. The voice of hunger echoes through the land. Among the few of us still battling it out on the farms the talk is: "How can we make a plan to feed our workers?" Food crops just get stolen and the shops are empty. A few of us have clubbed together and are bringing in 30 tonnes of rice from South Africa; but it has been stuck at the border for almost two weeks now. The paperwork and permits required beggar belief. The ruling party has always wanted to achieve a total monopoly on food. When people are hungry they can be controlled with food. It's like training dogs. Dog trainers use food to get their dogs to do what they want. Stalin and Mao used food as well.

I heard the other day of cattle dying on the other side of our local town of Chegutu. It was an outbreak of anthrax; but some of the people were so desperate that they ate the meat and have also died. Cholera is rife now too. The sewers are open and there is no running water in most towns or at the hospitals any longer. There is no electricity most of the time to run the pumps. Many people are dying from cholera and it's spreading all over the country. It is as though the whole place is now breaking up. No one who is not close to the elite can get their money out of the banks now. No one will accept cheques. So every bank has had a queue snaking out of its door for months. People have been desperately trying to draw out their money, which is limited to the equivalent of less than the price of a loaf of bread a day. Before the end of the day if you are lucky enough to get your allocation of cash the prices have doubled and you can only get half of what you wanted to buy in the first place.

The inner circle can get foreign currency at the official rate, though. Someone worked out recently that for the price of a water melon they can buy a car. There is no shortage of new top-of-the-range cars belonging to the elite in Harare. It is a malaise that appears unstoppable. While Rome burns the pig trough appears to know no limit. We had a literacy rate that was as high as any Western nation until recently. Most of the children from our area haven't been taught at school for nearly a year now. Instead they are being taught to steal. The police don't do anything when children are caught stealing, so their parents send them in to steal in gangs. On the farm we are putting up razor wire around all the mango orchards. If we don't, the entire crop will be stolen by gangs with a commercial network for transporting and marketing the stolen produce.

In a country that used to be a land of plenty, that only a few years ago used to be a consistent net exporter of food, it is sad that everything has now degenerated into such chaos. Zimbabwe has become like a good car that has suddenly had its engine taken out of it. In an instant the car called Zimbabwe is now unable to go forward any longer by itself. The international community, through the aid people, are trying to push the car along the road; but what the car really needs is a new engine. On the farm, instead of us putting money into razor wire we should be putting money into planting more fruit trees and crops. Instead of the agencies putting most of their money into treating the symptoms by giving food aid, they should also be doing everything possible to treat the causes and ensure that property rights and the rule of law are respected. If that is done Zimbabweans will be able to feed themselves once again and generate the money in surpluses to deliver health and education and a proper justice system that the country so desperately needs. The problem is that it might mean doing something bold. When dealing with tyrants who do not respect international agreements or international law, international peacekeeping forces and international prosecutors from the International Criminal Court are required to ensure that justice and democracy are delivered. Without such bold steps the people of Zimbabwe will continue to suffer at the hands of one man and his little circle of cronies.

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