THE recent media reports about accelerated “farm invasions” by purportedly “Zanu PF” elements indicate a sheer neglect of facts, contempt of the country’s judicial system by the purveyors of such untruths and a deliberate attempt to set an agenda for the Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in a vainly bid to reverse the land reform exercise.
Following the consummation of the inclusive Government, there has been marked dramatization not only of the “purported white farmers’ plight” but also a deliberate attempt by these elements to portray issues of naked intransigency by some arrogant white farmers as victimization by Zanu PF elements.
For those who ever doubted that the struggle for the control of Zimbabwe over the last decade had very little to do about democracy, the incessant screams by some white farmers and their Western backers as they inundate the Prime Minister’s office literally calling upon him to circumvent the country’s laws is surely an eye opener.
The Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, Gorden Moyo, has indicated what he referred as a worrisome trend of an “increase in farm invasions” as reported by the commercial farmers’ union representatives. “A lot of farmers are coming to us to report that their farms have been invaded and this is one of the major challenges facing this inclusive Government right now," he said.
It should be noted that the white farmers, cry to the Prime minister, even suggesting that he does away with existing land reform legislation is not without foundation. The unfortunate part of that foundation is on the basis of a sunken investment by the farmers into the MDC-T over the last decade in the hope that the party, once assuming power, would reverse the land redistribution exercise.
The media hype, primarily fed by Justice for Agriculture and the Commercial Farmers Union has been at most a carefully managed propaganda exercise meant to arouse international condemnation as well as applying unnecessary pressure on the Prime Minister as they had expected that he would repay their decade long support by singly striking land reform statutes in the country’s constitution. How that was supposed to happen is anybody’s guess.
The deliberate distortion of facts and the meek attempts to set the Prime Minister’s agenda vis-a-vis the issue by those who seek to gain public sympathy and become a hindrance to the smooth functioning of the inclusive Government will come to nought.
Those who have been following the issue of land acquisition in the country would confirm that the so called recent invasions are just but a last attempt by the so called victims to play the ball outside the court. The eviction orders were served on the farmers more than five years ago, the majority of them in 2004.
The farmers have been deliberately extending their stay through the manipulation of the country’s legal system and of late basing their stay on a non binding Sadc Tribunal ruling that went in their favour.
Since 2004, the farmers have manipulated a the Gazetted Land Consequential Provisions Act, that allowed them to wind up their activities such as harvesting on the farms after the land had been gazzeted. Instead of vacating, the farmers continued to carry out activities, in direct contravention of the law.
All of a sudden, there has been a deliberate emphasis on the Sadc Tribunal hearing as if the ruling has become the rule book for land reform in the country.
One of the evicted farmers, Taylor claimed that the offer letter presented by the new occupant was “illegal” as the Sadc Tribunal ruling protected him from eviction.
If the reason by Taylor has been based on law, why has he and the other farmers deliberately ignored a later ruling by Justice Kamocha that effectively reduced the Sadc ruling to a mere piece of tissue as it was ruled to be non-binding to the country.
From the beginning of the exercise, there has been a deliberate attempt to portray blacks in general especially those living on the farms as grateful servants whose life entirely depended upon the mercy of the white commercial farmer. The notion that blacks are comfortable as workers and that the welfare of animals supersede as with the case of the much publicized crocodiles in Chiredzi has always been a feature of the land reform reportage especially by those who have been always wanted to protect minority interests.
Take this report extracted from the Sunday Standard; “Since the white man was chased away we have never had a proper meal,” she said. "I now fear my children will soon be malnourished because rations have been stopped." The import of the “said” statement is obvious, an intent to paint the white commercial farmers more like later day messiahs.
The white farmers have always behaved as if the MDC-T owe them something, thereby playing into the hands of the party’s critics who argued that it was anti land reform.
Ben Freeth, one of the farmers who has vehemently opposed the exercise and one of the farmers at the centre of the current “storm” is said to have written a letter to the Prime Minister seeking, at the same time calling upon, the MDC-T to come to their defence.
Freeth’s letter to the Prime Minister asked parliament to do away with laws governing land reform. All he wants is to maintain a white commercial farming enclave in Chegutu and is very much at pains at the prospect of being separated from his father in law, Mike Campbell who was also resisting the acquisition of Mount Camel farm.
After all is said and done, the Prime Minister will be expected to operate within the ambit of the law. That is when even those who have parroted the case of “invasions” will be ashamed as the actions of the people with the offer letters will be found to be above board.
After having promised to deliver loads of cash if the MDC-T were to enter government, these people have found an excuse in the form of the “farm invasions”.
There is now talk of any aid being tied to a cessation of farm occupations. In the process, the cat has been let out of the bag as it has become clear that all these so called champions of democracy had all along been fighting for the return of the status quo.
Their definition of human rights is only narrow enough to cover their kith and keen.
At this juncture, there is very little reason to argue about why the land reform exercise was carried out. Rather, the emphasis should be on enhancing production so that the country will not continue to be enslaved to the whims of the Bretton Woods institutions as with the current situation
Ben Cousins, the director of the Program for Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of Western Cape, who had previously argued that land reform had destroyed agricultural production, now says that the future of Zimbabwe lies with capacitating the new farmers so that production is guaranteed.
Is it not surprising that the quest by Zimbabweans to attain self sufficiency through agricultural production is criminalized whilst even brute and shameful acts perpetrated by the so called friends of the West are sanitized?
The government of Israel has continued to annex land from the Palestinians and in the latest instance in order to build a park and the issue seem to have conveniently escaped the radar of the so called human rights policemen.
Time for protection of sectarian interests at the expense of the whole nation is long gone. The new government has to be preoccupied with rectifying issues surrounding farms protected by bilateral agreements as a way of enhancing external relations. The era of “little England” is long gone. The farmers who had placed bets on the MDC-T giving back their land will continue to kick their foot.
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Mukanya Makwira
