Zimbabwe: a white farmer’s story
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As the situation in Zimbabwe continues to deteriorate, Crikey received the following email from a family of white farmers whose property has been co-opted by local officials — this is their story in their words. First, some background from emailer Eric Harrison: In the hopes that the justice system in Zimbabwe would prevail, Digby Nesbitt and his family kept silent as the nightmare began to unfold — they had various court orders that should have prevented it from ever happening. Ordered to evacuate their farm by November 30, 2007, they stayed because they were assured that lands minister Didymus Mutasa was coming to the Lowveld on December 19 to resolve the issue. On December 18 they were told the trip had been postponed to early January.
At the end of January a Mr Veterai, the assistant police commissioner, who had threatened Digby Nesbitt on several occasions, arrived at the farmhouse with about 15 people, including his wife and some green bombers (Zanu PF youth militia). He showed the Nesbitts a new letter of offer saying he was taking over 71 hectares instead of the original 40 that he had been allocated. “This meant that absolutely nothing was left for us. When I told the governor, Mr Chiwewe, he said that Veterai’s offer letter was fraudulent and he said that I should tell Veterai that he had said that. Veterai replied that he did not care and that he was taking his 71 hectares and that no politician would stop him because they are all corrupt,” Nesbitt told The Zimbabwean on Sunday in an exclusive interview. This is Nesbitt’s account of what happened in the following weeks: Veterai had just broken into our office down at the compound and taken everything out and dumped it on the lawn. He also broke into my mother’s cottage and took all the keys with the result that every time I went to feed her cats, I had to climb through the lounge window where two louvers were missing. Veterai threatened our crocodile manager, Sam, and said that he was going to kill him and throw his body into the croc pen. A couple of weeks before, Sam was told that he was going to be castrated if he did not move out of his house. While we were in South Africa during the month of December, his furniture was thrown out of his house into the mud as it had been raining. Since then he and his family had been living in the little cottage next to our house. He was scared out of his wits. Veterai came into our lounge and sat down, saying that he and his family and guards would be moving in with us that day, whether we liked it or not. When I said that I objected, he called me a racist and said that it was because he is black that we did not want him living with us. He shouted and ranted and raved like a madman again, saying that he knew how to eat with a knife and fork and that he knew how to use the bathroom properly. He just made himself at home in the lounge for the rest of the day while his family moved their pots and pans etc into our kitchen. They took over the three guest rooms down the passage and the guards were posted in the lounge and dining room. Our front gate was locked and two booms were put up, one down at the compound and one just outside by the stables. We were prevented from leaving the house. On the Wednesday morning the guards unlocked our front gate obviously wanting us to leave everything and run. Our minister’s wife and another friend came to see how we were doing and we were sitting in the one section of the lounge, away from where the guards were. Veterai walked in from the bedroom where he had locked himself in until that time. He said that I had called him a baboon and started shouting and screaming and going beserk like a lunatic. I was flabbergasted as it was a total lie — I would never insult anyone like that, no matter what. Anyway, he calmed down eventually and went out of the room. After my visitors had left and I was walking back to the lounge, Veterai came walking out and as I passed him, my dogs (dachsi, Jack Russell and two very gentle mongrel crosses) started barking at him. He immediately lashed out at me, saying that I had set the dogs on him and kicked them, at the same time pulling out his pistol and pointing it at them, saying that he would shoot them and anyone else who got in his way. That night we locked ourselves in our bedroom at about 5.30pm and went to bed absolutely exhausted. On the Thursday morning we woke up, got dressed and went through to the kitchen to organise breakfast only to find about four women busy cooking sadza on our stove. We then proceeded to the lounge and found an absolute mess, obviously a party had been held the previous night as there were empty beer, liquor and coke bottles scattered all over the carpet and the furniture was in disarray. I confronted Veterai about the mess and said that it was disgusting; he immediately twisted what I said and accused me of calling him disgusting. Later that morning the member-in-charge from the Police Station in Chiredzi came out to the farm and basically informed us that there was nothing they could do about the situation unless there was any violence, as this was a “land issue”. |
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18 Comments
I cannot believe your comments. No one should be treated this way. By giving into these thugs they would be condoning their behaviour. It is easier for the whites to stand up to them, as they have nothing to lose now. Also Zimbabwe is their home and it is not easy just to leave a lifetime behind. The young may have somewhere to go, but it not easy for people over 80 to pack up and leave. Some have no family and nowhere to go.
Woody; it’s time to understand your neighbour; some people find satisfaction in the simple things and don’t need or want the latest car.
Simon Smith; so you wouldn’t mind your local MP moving into your home and telling you that shortly he will drive you out. Yeah right!
Patricia; my comments were along the same lines as Christ who said;”don’t look for a speck in another man’s eye before removing the log from your own.” I left Rhodesia 28 years ago and 2 countries later I am still a foreigner purely because I speak with a different dialect. I am also GB£250 000 poorer and no one is going to compensate me or any of my countrymen for this. Moving is one thing, but also being destitute is tough. You cannot remove money from the country and if you are over 40 you are screwed. I know many former British and SA servicemen who fought for King and Country in WW2 who live every day thanks to the charity of others who donate on poppy day. That is their legacy after 40 years work. Remember them.
Where is the moderator? This set of comments should be regarded as embarrassing and unfit to be published. Even Tony Papafilis’ comments are generally more considered than this bile.
Wendy, your comment is proof that some people never get beyond spouting ignorant garbage.
Those who choose to view this issue in terms of “racial justice” - rough or otherwise - totally misunderstand what is going on and are indulging in a self-righteous and fatuous ego trip. Mugabe is a dictator of the most cynical kind. He uses the issue of race and land purely for the purpose of retaining his grip on power and regardless of the suffering of the Zimbabwean people. There is no real purpose behind the land seizures other than to provide spoils for his henchmen. These henchmen have no idea about what to do with their ill-gotten gains and the farms fall into ruin leading to the starvation crisis which grips Zimbabwe today. I worked for two years in Zimbabwe as an Australian Volunteer Abroad and I have no doubt that most of the white farmers were racist, albeit in a paternal way, but that fact is irrelevat to the the awful state that Zimbabwe is in today.
Hopefully our Govenrment will make it extrmeely easy for this family, and others like them, to come here, good people, will make great Australians.
No hope in Zimbabwe, so sad for such a beautiful, rich agricultural country. Forty years ago an Australian agricultural specialist told me no difference between European and Africna lands, just the standard of agriculture. I wondered at the time whether it was somewhat racially oriented, though he seemed an absolutely straight shooter.
This story tells you why the country is now stuffed. I lived there for a year, working as a reporter, Had African and Euroepan friends, African journos, My wife grew up there. Left in the late 60s, reckoned the country would be pretty stuffed within 10 years. Sadly, sadly, was correct.
For Simon Smith - two wrongs dont make a right. Please watch Hotel Rwanda or the Last King of Scotland, so that you have a visual of the potential physical suffering that Zimbabweans are facing daily (black & white) under Mugabe rule. Human Rights orgs are reporting that in an effort to sway voters torture camps have sprung up like mushrooms - even children are being taken captive. Now think of the Nesbitts, who are making a stand, albiet one of quiet diplomacy. Knowing full well that the price they may have to pay for the stance is more shocking than the images that Hollywood can deliver to your safe, comfortable lounge. Its possible Patricia, they have an alternative but shouldn’t all you critics rather be commending their incredible bravery - afterall they are potentially sacrificing themselves just to draw some media focus to the country. It is hard to understand, but in a world that cares more about Britney’s knickers than African genocides what choice do they have? God bless them
Well we are all out with the snivelling, self-righteous hypocrisy today aren’t we. Mugabe was deemed to be a wonderful chap while he was torturing blacks and only became the most hated when he bothered some white squatters who got the land after Ian Smith’s brutal regime stole it.
Meanwhile back in Palestine, Israel has shut down a radio station that dared to talk about PEACE, arrested the staff, agreed to build 1200 more homes on stolen Palestinian land and the media in the west can’t be bothered to raise a yawn.
Go away the bloody lot of you and get back to us when you want to stop being such phoneys.
Is it just me or do others see the disconnect here? This family, just returned from a month in South Africa, obviously has the means to leave Zimbabwe. Their stubborn idiocy remaining in an anarchic situation leaves me entirely unable to sympathise. Nesbitt’s African workers are at risk of death and he is upset about a ruined carpet, someone kicking his dog and squatters in his kitchen doing everthing they can short of violence to get him to walk off his farm. When I lived briefly in Kenya at the time of the Mau Mau emergency I was amazed at the assumption by white famers of their rights to ownership and the protection of their “property” by the authorities, at considerable cost to African lives. Many are still there and farming land “granted” them by a colonial government over a century ago. The Nesbitts should seize the opportunity their white skins offer them, leave the country, even termporarily, and let the police get on with more urgent security matters where they can.
Why do we look for one single group to blame in any complex situation? Why do we need to find one cause for disaster when there are many? I think the general answer is that we prefer to feed our own biases with the appearance of reason and search for props to bolster our existing thought (or lack thereof) rather than make the greater effort of broader understanding. I can’t see many comments below which don’t fit the description above.
Past injustices can’t be corrected by throwing out the farmers, justice system, and process of democratic elections. Does all this chaos have a point? What is Mugabe trying to achieve? It seems to me this whole saga is just going to produce a net negative - trashed farms, trashed economy, corrupt government and nobody in charge who can fix the mess. Seems to me Mugabe has moved beyond fixing and on to revenge.
It just goes to prove that you can’t civilise some of these primitive people in one or two generations.
The Australian Aborigines have had an infinite amount of money thrown at them, yet have achieved very little. Compare them to some of the immigrants like the Chinese, Vietnamese and Indians who came out here with ‘bugger all’ . They worked their bums off so that their children would eventually become professionals and business people — - in most cases this has been achieved
Some of the stone-agers can’t or wont progress past the ‘Lucy’ stage’ and violence is their only resource
Substitute ‘domestic’ for ‘land’
The indignity of being thrown off ones land, forced to endure a variety of abuse, watching one’s family endure abuse, one’s children forced into slavery, one’s land divided up and given to others with no regard for it’s rightful owner… wait! Is this a new story? Could this possibly be the same story that has given dictators such as Mugabe their meteoric rise to power on the African continent? Is this not the same story of our own Indigenous population? Get a grip people - this is merely the result of years of colonial power and oppression coming back to haunt the descendants of the perpetrators. We are just lucky that we did a much better job of exterminating our local aboriginal populations so we will never have to experience what the whites in Zimbabwe are currently living through. And Louise, you are 100% correct. No one should be treated this way. Ever.
People like Marilyn make me puke. Let’s get a grip. You live in Australia I presume. According to wikipaedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Australia) you and your ancestors are responsible for a 90% reduction of the Aboriginal population caused by amongst other things, the loss of their lands.
Lets compare the track record of Southern Rhodesia where the white settlers, sanctioned in the same way by the British government, intervened in the genocide of the Shona people by the Matabele. There were an estimated 500 000 blacks of all ethic groups in 1890 and 4.5M in 1980. The white settlers allocated more than a third of the country to tribal trust land that was managed in a traditional way by their own elected chiefs. This existed until 1980.
When you can fully appreciate your own history and have fully compensated the aboriginal population for your gross violation of their civil rights over the last 150 years come back and lecture us on what we did.
Rob, it’s not a question of lecturing you and other white (settler) farmers in African countries. I was married to a South African at the time of the Sharpeville massacre. I can recall my husband, a “liberal” white South African expat in Canada, using exactly your argument to Canadians who criticised his country. “Look at how you’ve treated the Eskimos after stealing their land! So don’t lecture us!” Retrospective justice just isn’t possible and blame doesn’t achieve anything. People like the Nesbitts, however, do have alternatives in what is an intolerable situation for them and also I imagine for the local police they think should support them. Somehow they have survived in Zimbabwe when most other white farmers have long gone. They should go too while those thugs in their house are not yet assaulting them and there is still a semblance of civil order. Driving to an airport to collect your e-ticket is a lot simpler than organising a wagon trek to safety.
So the blacks occupied the three guest rooms, hey? Must be tough, having your three guest rooms taken away by people living in shacks. The takeover of white farms may or may not have been a disaster for the Zimbabwe economy, but the things were built on black labour in the first place. If white farmers had made an effort to create a smooth and gradual handover, they might have got a better deal. As it is, screw em, I’ve got no sympathy
So Ian Huntley thinks they’ll make “great Australians”. How does he know? Surely, if the family cares to be in Australia, it’ll have to be assessed on the merits of its case? Or is he urging a fast track? How about the majority of (black) Zimbabweans, such as Sam, who’ve also suffered a whole lot more? Would they be “great Australians”? (And what of the people on the Tampa, who’s lot is/was far worse?) He’s obviously not aware of the history of Zimbabwe and of its past racist policy of land allocation - yet he worked there as a reporter for a year for which he appears to claim some legitimacy for his opinion. Certainly, the narrator has had a harrowing experience, but he’s not dumb enough not to have a bank account for a safety net.