they can take it from me’
Chris McGreal
Gladman T waited for a week after the first squatters moved in before he fashioned a dozen wooden stakes, walked to a far corner of the farm he has worked on for most of his adult life, and pegged out a claim to a small piece of land.
“When the war veterans first came, I didn’t think they would be allowed to stay. But they are still there and they say they are going to redistribute all the land. I have lived on this farm for 35 years. If they take over I won’t have any job, so I have to make sure I have some of the land.”
In the confrontation between Zimbabwe’s white farmers and the invaders who have occupied about 1E000 farms, the real victims are the hundreds of thousands of farm labourers who are threatened with the loss of their jobs and homes.
They are also bearing the brunt of the violence. Only 10 white farmers have been seriously injured, but more than 100 of their workers have been taken to hospital. And while very few farmers have been driven from their houses, hundreds of labourers and their families have been forced from the accommodation that comes with the job.
John Robertson, a Harare economist, estimates that many more labourers stand to lose their jobs than Zimbabweans are likely to benefit from the land redistribution.
“Many of these workers do not have communal lands to go to. If they are dispossessed of their jobs they will be competing for work in a market that has been incredibly unsuccessful since independence at generating new jobs. They stand to lose everything if they are forced off the land.”
Life has never been easy on the farms. The 4E500 white-owned estates are Zimbabwe’s biggest employer. They also pay the lowest cash wages. Maids earn more than farm workers. Employers say they provide free housing, basic foodstuffs and an education for their workers’ children. But conditions vary substantially between farms, and some farmers have found the old habit of abuse from the days of racist white rule hard to break.
Gladman earns Z$750 (R120) a month on a farm east of Harare. He has worked there since about the time Ian Smith made Rhodesia’s unilateral declaration of independence.
At that time his main concern was the paltry wages, long hours and lack of protection from his employer. Within 10 years there was also the war of independence to contend with.
“There were a lot of attacks and killings in this area. All the farmers were in the army and were suspicious of blacks. They said we were working with the liberation fighters. The fighters said we were working with the farmers. It was always bad when there was a killing in the area, especially if it was a white child.”
One of Gladman’s four sons went to fight with Robert Mugabe’s guerrillas and never returned.
After independence in 1980, many of the white farmers who stayed in Zimbabwe were forced to temper their treatment of workers. But not all.
“The farmer here is not a good man. When he gets angry he throws things at us or lets the dogs on us. He got very angry one day when the machinery broke and he cut the electricity off to all our houses,” Gladman said.
“He is like many whites. They only want to deal with blacks as workers. His attitude creates a bitterness among us. If there were to be trouble here with the war veterans, I don’t think any of his workers would help him.”
There is little doubt that some of the beatings administered to farmers in recent days are punishment for years of maltreatment. Neighbours of one farmer who has had a particularly difficult time at the hands of the squatters said he was notorious for forcing one of his workers into a plastic rubbish bag and dumping him by the roadside as a punishment.
But farmers insist that that is the exception in modern Zimbabwe, and some command considerable loyalty from workers who have tried to resist the land occupations.
Many of the workers are doubly vulnerable because they are descended from migrant labourers who came from other countries in colonial times. In consequence, they fall outside the local traditional structures and have almost no political clout.
“I cannot say I want to work on this farm, but I have to,” said Gladman. “I cannot say I think this farmer should keep this farm, but if he doesn’t, then I will not have a job. I have claimed a bit of the land, but I do not think my family can survive on that.
“Anyway, if they can take the land from the whites, they can take it from me.”