Zimbabwe’s white farmers pondered their uncertain future on Friday after a deadline for many to get off their land passed with no government reaction against those defying eviction orders.
”It looks bleak. We are trying to carry on, we are on high alert and we don’t know what happens next,” said Warwick Evans, a farmer facing eviction in the Trelawney district, 80 kilometres northwest of Harare.
It remained unclear how the government will treat 2 900 white farmers who had been ordered to leave their land by midnight on Thursday as part of the country’s programme to seize white-owned farms to re-distribute to landless black Zimbabweans.
The evictions deadline came as half Zimbabwe’s 12,5 million
people face a severe hunger crisis, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). The WFP blames the crisis on drought combined with the agricultural chaos caused by the seizures of commercial farms, mainly owned by whites.
The government has targeted 95% of white-owned farms for seizure. No attempts were made on Friday to force the farmers in Trelawney from their land, Evans said.
He hoped the standoff could lead to a policy shift by the
government to allow some farmers to stay on their farms if they gave some plots to black Zimbabweans or forfeited most of their land, retaining only limited areas for themselves.
”If there are new criteria, you either live with it or you move on, and that’ll be it,” he said.
The Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), representing the nation’s 4 000 white farmers, reported two incidents on Friday in eastern Zimbabwe in which ruling party militants and black Zimbabweans resettled on seized land tried to pressure white farmers to leave.
”Police were called and it seemed the issue would be resolved,” said Colin Cloete, head of the union.
Ben Zietsman, a union official in the western Matabeleland
province, said farmers reported no incidents there on Friday.
”Farmers are generally staying at home to assess the situation as it develops,” he said.
Many white farmers were deeply sentimental about leaving land that had been in their families for decades. But Evans (42) only bought his 1 500 hectare farm in 1987, when it was nearly derelict. He turned it into a profitable business, tripling its production of mainly tobacco while raising a young family.
”Sure, it’s been a large investment, but it’s a business ? like selling second hand cars – and you mustn’t get sentimental about it.
If things don’t work out, you have to have a plan B, to move on, because there are other things in life,” he said.
Evans said some of his elderly neighbours faced ruin with few prospects of finding alternative work. Some younger farmers already had found jobs abroad.
”What really worries me is the government’s lack of control of its supporters on the ground,” he said, referring to armed ruling party militants.
The farmers union said many farmers had packed up personal
belongings and valuables for safekeeping ahead of the deadline, but up to three-fourths of those who faced immediate eviction vowed to stay until it became clear what the government was going to do.
Justice for Agriculture, a newly formed pressure group that has called on farmers to challenge evictions in court, said about 800 farmers abandoned their land in recent weeks as the deadline approached.
Another 300 farmers had taken impromptu vacations at the start of symbolic annual weekend celebrations honouring the guerrilla war that ended white rule and led to independence in 1980, she said.
On Wednesday, Vice President Joseph Msika tried to allay fears that the government and ruling party militants would begin widespread and possibly violent evictions on Friday.
But Ignatious Chombo, the local government minister, said
officials expected farmers to leave by the deadline or face arrest.
The farmers’ fate was further clouded by a court ruling this week that invalidated one eviction order because the farm had a mortgage and the bank was not consulted. Many other affected farmers have mortgages as well.
The government says its land programme is an effort to correct colonial era injustices. Critics say it is part of the increasingly authoritarian government’s effort to maintain power amid more than two years of economic chaos and political violence mainly blamed on the ruling party.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said the farm evictions will worsen the hunger, hurt hundreds of thousands of farm workers and their families and devastate the agriculture-based economy.
”The plight of white commercial farmers is only a symptom of a bigger national crisis of governance,” said Renson Gasela, the MDC’s top agricultural official. – Sapa-AP