Farmer attacked in Chipinge

Farmer attacked in Chipinge

• Minister Chombo evicted from farm

• Zanu PF factions battle over farms

• Moyo in hot water over state farm

• Nkomo declares war on 'saboteurs and infiltrators'

• Nkomo orders Moyo, Made and Chinamasa to surrender farms

• No nationalisation - Moyo

• Zim to nationalise land - Nkomo

• Mohadi sues Made over invaders

• Mugabe protects South African land

• Supreme court says land seizures 'legal'

• Zimbabwe court throws settlers lifeline

• Only 32% of land ready for planting

• Amnesty demands inquiry into farm deaths

• Man dies in Porta Farm clashes

• Porta Farm residents vow to stay put

• Six farmers arrested in Karoi

• Moyo unleashes hounds on wildlife sanctuary

• Grain research award for Zim scientist

• Zim seizes Zambia-bound farm equipment

• Trouble brews on Mohadi's farm

• Supreme Court blow for farmers

• Zimbabwe land grab law challenged

• Nuns join land grab

• Farmer shoots settler dead

• Msika: "Not defeated on Kondozi"

• Kondozi farm worker shot by police

• Nyambuya's workers desert farm

By Peta Thornycroft

AFTER years of resisting President Robert Mugabe's violent campaign to rid Zimbabwe of white farmers David Wilding-Davies believed he had survived the ethnic purge.

He was wrong. In what appears to be the start of the final clearance of Zimbabwe's remaining white farmers, Mugabe's security forces launched a dawn raid yesterday, firing automatic weapons against Wilding-Davies, his white farm manager and a neighbour in Chipinge, south-eastern Zimbabwe.

The operation followed Mugabe's alteration of the constitution last month, for the 17th time since independence from Britain in 1980. He nationalised all white-owned land and prevented white farmers going to court to challenge seizure of about 22 million acres.

Wilding-Davies was attacked by about 15 armed militia when he went to assist his manager, Allan Warner, 53, a South African, who had been knocked to the ground and was being kicked and pummelled. Wilding-Davies said a member of the Central Intelligence Organisation, which operates out of Mr Mugabe's office, led the attackers.

"It was an incredibly unpleasant experience. It began suddenly as we were walking to work. We are presently harvesting coffee worth about $300,000 [£166,000] for export to Canada."

Both men are still in pain after being treated at the local clinic.

Gideon Mostert, a coffee grower and dairy farmer, was attacked hours earlier, apparently by the same group, but escaped to a local church.

"We were warned last week that Chipinge would be soon be cleared of white farmers," said Trevor Gifford, the chairman of the Coffee Growers' Association of Zimbabwe. "There are about 80 of us here, the largest group of white farmers left in Zimbabwe and we were informed another eight more will be done before the weekend."

Wilding-Davies, a member of the Canadian equestrian team in the 1988 Olympics, and his wife Amy fell in love with Chipinge's misty hills during a holiday in 1998. He gave up his job as a horse trainer in British Columbia, bought Ashanti farm and a year later had planted 100 acres of coffee.

"Zimbabwe was a different country then," he said. "We were welcomed and worked hard."

Doug Taylor-Freeme, the Commercial Farmers' Union president, said: "Developments on the ground where farmers are beaten up and evicted indicate that the threat of a final mop-up of remaining white farmers has begun, even though Zimbabwe desperately needs the foreign currency they earn."

Police were not available for comment yesterday and Flora Buka, the land and resettlement minister, said she was "in a meeting" and switched off her cell phone.

About 3,500, or 90 per cent, of white commercial farmers have been forced out by Mugabe and his cronies since 2000. Irrigation systems are broken, rich land is fallow, most dairy cattle have been eaten and hundreds of thousands of Africa's most skilled farm workers have fled abroad or are unemployed.

Zimbabwe was a net exporter of food but now depends on imports and the United Nations says up to four million people, or a third of the population, need emergency feeding.

The economy shrank by a third in five years and inflation will reach at least 400 per cent by the year's end, according to government statistics. There has been no hard currency for fuel for the past month.

The government admitted this week that it has no foreign currency to import seed or fertiliser for the summer season, which began on Sept 1, and expects the worst harvests in living memory.

Mugabe refused a South African offer of a $500 million (£276 million) loan last month because it contained conditions for political and economic reform. Foreign banks in Harare say that instead he raided exporters' foreign currency accounts to pay the International Monetary Fund $120 million (£66.2 million) to avoid Zimbabwe's immediate expulsion.

The best white-owned farms, have been taken by Mugabe's cronies and most of the landless people he claimed would be beneficiaries of the land grabs live in acute poverty and are among those in urgent need of food aid - Telegraph (UK)
JOIN THE DEBATE ON THIS ARTICLE ON THE NEWZIMBABWE.COM FORUMS
newsdesk@newzimbabwe.com