Zimbabwe faces starvation as mobs rampage through farms

[FourScore]

Just as Tommy Miller was milking his Friesian herd early yesterday morning, the mob stormed into Dunluce Farm. Armed with sticks, stones and a shotgun, they ordered him to stop. He refused. The cows had to be milked or they would become ill. “This is the law,” replied their dreadlocked leader, brandishing his baton. “You must throw the milk on the ground.”

As they rampaged through Zimbabwe’s last productive farms, Robert Mugabe’s feared militiamen threatened to drive the country to starvation with a campaign not just to reclaim white-owned land but to destroy the farming system.

Reports flooding into farmers’ unions in Harare yesterday told of the wilful destruction of farm equipment, produce and buildings as part of an alleged “popular uprising” by government-backed mobs in the name of getting the land back for the black population. Agriculturalists fear that the country could run out of food within weeks as the farm invasions stop the maize harvest in mid-flow and threaten the future of wheat crops with only four weeks left for planting.

As of yesterday, 60 commercial farmers – including two black farmers with opposition sympathies – had been evicted from their farms by mobs of so-called war veterans, the shock troops unleashed by Mr Mugabe in a desperate attempt to cling to power. Dozens more have fled their farms, unwilling to resist the increasingly violent mobs, which have set fire to farm labourers’ huts and beaten workers.

Up to 300 veterans, in T-shirts of the ruling Zanu (PF) party, turned up at Mr Miller’s sprawling dairy farm south of Harare yesterday, closing down production when he refused to leave, and surrounding his heavily fortified house to try to flush him out.

Milk has become one of the scarcest commodities in Zimbabwe since the first invasions in early 2000, and long queues form from early morning in the rare places it can be found on sale. In a land of such desperate hunger, the wanton waste of milk seems unbelievable. But while millions of Zimbabweans spent their day in the exhausting search for food, Mugabe supporters spent theirs in a frenzied effort to destroy the supply chain...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article3671353.ece

[NNN0LHI]

1. I fear this is our future

[Zynx]

3. In a few centuries perhaps. It takes a special neglect of policies to cause what

we see in Zimbabwe.

[PaulaFarrell]

14. it's only taken a few years to get to this point

prior to 2000 they were considered the breadbasket of the region

[Zynx]

16. Their policies are uniquely terrible.

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

18. The did not get their through any means

but folly of epic proportions...

Yes if in the US we took mobs of youths and had them take over 90% of the farm land under the title of 'war veterans' we would have problems..

[AngryAmish]

2. I'm sure looting the last productive farms will end well.

[David__77]

4. This article from the right-wing Times is so propaganda-laden.

Not a sentence is written that doesn't drip with loaded terms and editorial slant. Just sayin'.

[FourScore]

5. Examples?

[David__77]

6. OK...

"dreadlocked leader, brandishing his baton."

Loaded. Who cares about his hairstyle?

"Robert Mugabe’s feared militiamen threatened to drive the country to starvation with a campaign not just to reclaim white-owned land but to destroy the farming system."

That's editorial. They explicitly "threatened" no such thing. They threatened to seize farms. The rest is conjecture about the consequences.

"government-backed mobs"

What constitutes a "mob?" When is it a "crowd" or a "group?"

"mobs of so-called war veterans, the shock troops unleashed by Mr Mugabe in a desperate attempt to cling to power."

Again the "mobs." And why are the veterans "so-called." There are tens of thousands of liberation war veterans - not all support Mugabe now either.

[Captain Sensible]

7. So what.

It is written using words to make it sound more explosive than it is but it doesn't mitigate the fact that Mugabe will destroy the farming system by giving lands to people unable to run them correctly. The facts are still the facts.

[mainegreen]

8. Here's a picture of these 'war veterans' for you

They are clearly to young to be war veterans.
It's very common for ZANU-PF supporters to take on the 'war veteran' mantle in order to make theft and redistribution of property from both whites and blacks seem just.

"Robert Mugabe’s feared militiamen threatened to drive the country to starvation with a campaign not just to reclaim white-owned land but to destroy the farming system."
Actually, Mugabe has threatened to shut everything down rather than let 'imperial British colonialists' get there way (colonialists being anyone who opposes him, even the MDC).

What constitutes a "mob?" When is it a "crowd" or a "group?"
In Zimbabwe, legally it's now anything more that 4 people gathered in one place, per order of Mugabe.

[David__77]

9. So Mugabe has young supporters too,

I see.

I didn't know that the Times followed Mugabe's definition of "mob" or "crowd" either.

[mainegreen]

10. Yes. Young 'war veterans'.

Who said the Times is following his definition? However, I would say that these groups of 'war veterans' do in fact, constitute not only crowds, but mobs. Unless you have some other definition of crowd or mob?

[Captain Sensible]

11. Are you supporting the actions taken or just critiqing the article. nt

[David__77]

12. I'm critiquing the article.

I think people need to only critically assimilate information from media sources.

I don't have an opinion on the land seizures. My first thought is that land reform could be conducted in a far superior fashion.

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

13. And by far superior

you mean not empowering young people as 'war veterans' and giving them in large groups the authority to violently remove people from once productive farms while the nation itself is on the verge of starvation?

Face it RM is the worlds worst rulers right now he makes * look like an angel and a intellectual! Thats how bad he is!

Sure land redistribution was not in and of itself a bad idea but it takes decades to learn to farm so if you're going to take farm land take is in very, very small chunks and turn it over to real war veterans as something slightly bigger than subsistence farms. Leave 90-95% of the farms in the hands of people who can feed the nation and, if they are really evil colonialist, tax the hell out of them use the money to redress issues caused by colonialism.

If this article is referring to what I saw on the BBC last night its *completely accurate* a large unorganized group of people ages 18-30 came onto a farm and told a farmer milking a cow to stop, 'this is our farm now' I guarantee you not a one of them knows how to run a farm.

Why would RM do this? one reason to hold power by getting a group to be his mob (and they are a mob) via gifts of land and intimidating opposition..

[PaulaFarrell]

15. i Think these veterans are 'so-called'

because they are too young to have fought in the war.

[Zynx]

17. Quite right. The war for independence ended 28 years ago.

[LibertyLover]

19. When Mugabe first started taking farms that belonged to mostly

white Zimbabweans several years ago as part of his land redistribution, he gave them to people who had no idea how to farm. Many were from the urban areas. I remember seeing a BBC clip at the time of an interview with one of the new owners. She had actually gotten part of a farm that had belonged to a black Zimbabwean, but whom Mugabe had labeled a colonialist because he had accumulated land. She was asked if she knew how to farm. No she replied with a shrug, what do I care about farming. I have land now. While the farm in question was not a dairy farm per se, there were several dairy cows. The BBC reporter stated that he had been told they were killed because the new owners didn't want to be bothered with them. They weren't even used for food, just left to rot out in the field. I was in Zimbabwe in 1974, before Mugabe came to power. Heck, it was still called Rhodesia. But it was agriculturally stable, able to feed its population and export food. How sad to see it in this condition.