They were fêted by Robert Mugabe as patriots and pioneers in a radical redistribution of land to redress colonial injustice. But the war veterans who ousted white farmers have now themselves been invaded.
Last month, police units fanned across Trelawney, a rural district outside the capital, Harare, and erased settlements with matches and mallets.
The devastation starts just north of Harare and stretches for mile after mile with hundreds of homes wrecked, fields scorched and families gone, leaving the landscape silent and empty. ”Now we are in the position the white farmer was. The authorities used us,” Richard Mapuringa (33) said last week, sifting through the ruins of his house.
Across Trelawney and other districts there were thousands like him, angry and confused over livelihoods reduced to ashes and a promise betrayed.
No official explanation was given for the evictions, but the suspicion was that senior figures in the ruling Zanu-PF party wanted to claim the farms, which had names such as Little England, for themselves.
”You can’t accept a government that does this,” said Mapuringa.
But it seems Zimbabweans do accept a government that does this and worse.
Inflation exceeds 300%, unemployment tops 70%, decent food is unaffordable for many, freedom of speech and assembly have been crushed and a repressive law muzzling civil society is on the way.
Parliamentary elections are due next March but instead of fighting for survival, the party that has ruled since independence from Britain in 1980 is expected to coast to victory.
Last year’s general strike has not been repeated and protest rallies have not materialised. ”Mugabe is more secure in power now than before,” said one western diplomat, referring to the country’s president.
A sullen, resigned mood reigns in Zimbabwe. Since narrowly losing elections in 2000 and 2002, which international observers deemed rigged, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change has floundered.
Broke, exhausted and traduced by the media, the party has no way of combating the government’s ability to pay the forgers and bully opponents. ”We are cracking under the strain,” said one MP.
Non-governmental organisations used to challenge the regime but several have started winding down operations since being targeted by a new bill likely soon to become law. ”People are disillusioned, they can’t see a way forward,” said one United Nations official.
What happened at Trelawney shows how the government can keep a tight grip on power despite chaotic policies and deep internal divisions.
Having mobilised the settlers in 2000 to chase away the white farmers and their black labourers the government failed to supply feed, training or equipment, prompting a national collapse in production which has fuelled food shortages.
”At least here we still coped. I was able to grow maize, sorghum, ground nuts, paprika, and enough to feed my family,” said James Hodzi (58), a local Zanu-PF party chairperson.
But in mid-September the police destroyed everything.
Who gave the order is a mystery, since no minister has publicly endorsed the policy. Earlier this month a high court halted the evictions, prompting Hodzi and others to return and try to rebuild.
But as commercial farmers learned four years ago, a court ruling is no protection from the ruling party.
Peasants in Trelawney accused Mugabe’s sister Sabina and his nephew Joe of coveting their land. Others said it had been earmarked for army officers. Another theory was of a machiavellian plot to discredit a faction within the party. Whatever the motive, invaders were no longer wanted.
”There is some poetic justice in their eviction but you have to sympathise. They have been used. The small fry making way for the bigger fry,” said John Worsley-Worswick, of the white farmers’ group Justice for Agriculture.
Not all sympathised. John Jones, one of the last white farmers in Trelawney, welcomed the expulsion of neighbours he accused of theft. ”It’s the way forward if we are to get commercial production back on an even keel.”
However, a few miles further down a dirt track his neighbour Hodzi, a self-styled invader, said he was determined to stay and rebuild the burnt shell of his home. A member of Zanu-PF since 1980, he declined at first to blame the party for his troubles but later suggested there was cronyism in the leadership. Gesturing to his scorched fields he said: ”All this destruction, just so someone can give his girlfriend a present.”
Eliciting praise from a white farmer and anger from erstwhile Zanu-PF supporters, the evictions appear an aberration but one that is unlikely to threaten the party’s re-election.
With a near monopoly of the media and food stocks, and with a population cowed by security forces, the regime feels assured of victory.
On a recent trip to Mozambique Mugabe had a spring in his step. ”We are now, day by day, regaining a noteworthy political and economic stability,” he told journalists. In other words, the possibility of his overthrow had receded. – Guardian Unlimited Â