Pogroms, sir!

The whites call their comrade at the Linton farm near Harare: while preparing the attack, the rioters cut it off from the outside world. (Photo: AP )

If holidays are cancelled, it means someone needs it. The main public holiday of Zimbabwe (until 1980 Southern Rhodesia) - Independence Day - was not celebrated this year due to the robberies and pogroms that unfolded throughout the country. The official explanation, however, said that it was decided to save money during the celebrations for the benefit of those affected by the February flood, but no one believed it: for a month now, Zimbabwe, once one of the most prosperous countries in Africa, has been living on the brink of civil war. Angry black crowds with stakes, axes, machetes, and even machine guns seize farms owned by whites. About a thousand farms have already been expropriated. Six people died, two of them white - they were buried in mid-April, just on the days when the country was supposed to celebrate its 20th anniversary.

Lock the floors, there will be robberies now!
The first victim was David Stevens, owner of Arizona Farm in the Macheke region, less than 100 kilometers from the capital Harare. On April 16, David and several other farmers who tried to come to his aid were taken hostage and, handcuffed, taken away to an unknown destination.

Stevens was shot and others were maimed. Already in the hospital, one of the farmers with a disfigured face recalled how they brought a revolver to his temple and ordered him to pray. The trigger clicked, but the shot did not fire. The farmer himself does not know why he remained alive: either it was a misfire, or he was spared.


The leader of the black expropriators, nicknamed Hitler, sings revolutionary songs with his friends. (Photo: AP )

Before the shock of this savage massacre had passed, two days later another white farmer was killed. Martin Olds endured a real battle on his farm near Bulawayo, the country's second city. He was wounded several times, his house was set on fire, but he continued to fire back. The bullet-riddled body of Martin Olds was found among the charred ruins of his home.

Since the police show complete indifference to what is happening (in Macheka, for example, whites were captured right at the police station where they were seeking refuge), farmers began to leave their farms in droves. Some intend to emigrate (the Australian government has already announced its readiness to accept them), but the majority are still staying with relatives or friends in the cities - it is still safer there.

Meanwhile, farms left to the mercy of fate are robbed and burned. Western television journalists, at the risk of their lives, managed to film the pogrom of a farm 40 minutes drive from Harare. These images literally shocked the world: a brutal crowd destroys everything in an abandoned house, and then takes away what they can carry away. Doors are planted in the same way in the adobe dwellings of workers. Houses are set on fire and chained dogs are beaten to death with sticks. The camera captured the faces of the rioters: there really was little humanity in them.

Although there have been fewer pogroms in recent days, all the representatives of the white community with whom I have spoken are not just depressed, but crushed by what is happening. For the most part, these people considered themselves Zimbabweans and full citizens of the country. Suddenly they became outcasts: the state abandoned them to the mercy of the rioters.

White tribe of Africa
Since the government of the black majority led by the former leader of the guerrilla movement Robert Mugabe (see “Results” No. 9 for this year) came to power a decade and a half earlier than in neighboring South Africa, the relationship between blacks and whites in Zimbabwe became a precedent for the region.
At the dawn of independence, in the early 1980s, white Zimbabweans, heirs of those brought here by Cecil Rhodes, who discovered Zimbabwe at the end of the 19th century, began to pack their bags, fearing revenge. But nothing terrible happened. Mugabe announced a course for national reconciliation.

Most of the whites remained. They continued to live in their green villas with tennis courts and swimming pools, servants and gardeners. Moreover, they retained key positions in business, industry and agriculture.

True, whites were completely ousted from the state apparatus. And the white community did not take any part in political life, knowing full well that the dominance of the permanently ruling black majority party ZANU-PF makes the opposition meaningless. Business was limited to grumbling about the ineffectiveness of government in between passionate discussions of cricket, rugby, fishing, hunting and crop prospects.

Whites did not encroach on power, but the authorities did not bother them much either. From the high stands, however, they did not miss the opportunity to throw a stone, sometimes a heavy one, into the white garden. As soon as the government had new problems, whites were blamed for them. But the angry tirades of black leaders were not usually followed by punitive action. At first, the whites were nervous, but then they got used to such rhetoric, considering it an unpleasant but acceptable price for a high standard of living.

However, incompetence in management and corruption led to the squandering of the economic inheritance that Zimbabwe received from Southern Rhodesia. A year ago, in May 1999, these are the reasons for the economic downturn that were named in a closed report by the Munich Institute for Policy Research, commissioned by the EU. The same institute prescribed a very radical treatment: Mugabe’s resignation, democratization and a peaceful change of the ruling team to a more competent one. Despite the efforts of the former metropolis, Great Britain, it was not possible to achieve a coordinated position of the European Union, but sanctions still followed. It wasn’t even a matter of the economy (by the end of last year the crisis became obvious, as evidenced by queues for fuel across the country and a catastrophic increase in unemployment). International financial institutions stopped providing loans to the country after President Mugabe sent 11 thousand Zimbabwean soldiers to the Democratic Republic of the Congo - officially to support the “legitimate regime of President Kabila”, and according to rumors - to give his generals the opportunity to “control” local diamonds mines. By the way, this “small victorious war” costs a pretty penny: according to calculations by the London Economist magazine, last year the costs for it amounted to a third of the annual budget.

These maneuvers worsened the situation of Zimbabwean whites: the prospect of becoming hostages of the black majority in a country that opposed itself to the world community loomed before them. Actually, there was little choice: some voted with their feet, leaving the homeland of their ancestors, while others began to timidly protest. Timidly, because for any criticism from whites under these conditions, the authorities defamed them as racists who dreamed of restoring the old colonial order.

The conflict grew. The first serious challenge by the white community to the ZANU-PF government was the creation of a strong opposition press. Independent newspapers that appeared a couple of years ago, in which whites played a prominent role, launched merciless criticism of the ruling elite and, most importantly, became popular among the black population. The Mugabe regime faces a new enemy: independent public opinion.

But the white community finally awakened from political lethargy quite recently - with the emergence of the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). It was created by independent trade unions, which entered into confrontation with the government. As soon as the leaders of the trade unions decided to create a party, whites, especially wealthy farmers, provided them with tangible financial and organizational support. They were hit back.

A society corrupted by the agrarian question
The direction of the main attack was not difficult to predict. The agrarian question in Zimbabwe, as in neighboring South Africa, is extremely acute. In the struggle for independence, the partisan fronts in both countries, like the Bolsheviks in Russia, achieved mass support by promising land to the peasants. This meant the redistribution of land in favor of blacks, since the best land was, of course, in the hands of whites. In Zimbabwe, four and a half thousand white families have 12 million hectares of the most fertile land. 11 million Africans look at them with envy.

No one denies the problems, not even white farmers. But it is extremely difficult to approach it. Mugabe's government says its hands were tied in the early years of independence: under the constitution, farmland could only be alienated with the owner's consent and if paid at the market price. And the former colonial mistress Great Britain, which supposedly pledged to provide funds, did not fulfill its promise.
London, in turn, claims to have allocated 44 million pounds sterling ($102 million) for the first stage of the reform. But then they were disappointed with its progress - the purchased land was used unproductively, or even ended up in the hands of government officials and their nominees. The British insist: in order to help those in need and not undermine the economy, the basic industry of which was and remains agriculture, it is necessary to preserve large farms capable of producing export products - meat, butter, milk, flowers, vegetables, fruits, tobacco. The latter product is perhaps the main source of foreign exchange income. Many famous brands are made from high-quality local tobacco - for example, Rothmans.

Realizing that the consequence of land redistribution would inevitably be a drop in production, President Mugabe raised the agrarian issue only in cases of extreme necessity: when social discontent was brewing or on the eve of the next elections. Thus, three years ago, ZANU-PF amended the constitution to allow the taking of land without the consent of the owners, after which the government announced its intention to take (albeit with payment for outbuildings) slightly less than half of the area (5 million hectares) from white farmers. But then the matter was limited to declarations.

Passions around the land issue began to rage with renewed vigor after the failure of the February referendum on the draft of a new constitution, which contained clauses on the right to alienate land without ransom (the authorities apparently wanted to entice the lumpen with the prospect of a black redistribution, but miscalculated). The referendum was initiated by the president himself, so the failure (54.6 percent of citizens voted against) became his personal defeat. Polls taken a month after the vote showed even worse results: 65 percent of Zimbabweans wanted Mugabe to resign.

Then Mugabe and his entourage went for broke. Using an absolute parliamentary majority (147 out of 150 seats), the presidential party reshaped the agrarian code to its taste. However, without waiting for the law to come into force, veterans of the liberation movement began to occupy white farms.

Hitler for the poor
In Zimbabwe, veterans are all the fighters of the partisan units who fought against the regime of Ian Smith until 1980. After independence, many of them became part of the regular army and police, but part of this public turned into ordinary lumpen - into ragamuffins, ready to describe their exploits to the first person they met while drunk. However, for all their diversity, veterans constitute a certain caste, the core of which is united in a fairly influential association.

They recalled this, threatening to take up arms, several years ago, when a special fund intended to pay them compensation was stolen. The money, as it turned out, was stolen by the top bureaucrats: large sums were received by those who had never fought for anything. Moreover, other statesmen presented certificates of such terrible wounds and injuries that it is impossible to understand how these cripples managed to go to work.

The chairman of the 50,000-strong veterans’ association, Chendzherai Khunzwe, nicknamed Hitler, was also involved in fraud. Being a doctor, he falsified certificates of injuries: the court case brought against him has not yet been closed.

This Hitler, with shifty eyes and a constant grin on his face, became famous in a fierce struggle for leadership in the veterans' association, which was torn apart by constant squabbles. People who know Khunzwe say that his psyche was greatly influenced by the flight of his wife, whom he brought from Poland, where he was studying to become a doctor; she returned to her homeland with her children. As for Adolf Hitler, the Zimbabwean namesake speaks of him with respect: “He was a real revolutionary, and he fought for his ideas, just like me.” He also compares himself to Napoleon: “Like him, no one can stop me.”

The relationship between the local Hitler-Napoleon and the Mugabe regime is a rather delicate matter. He swung at power during the veteran turmoil, but he was quickly shown his place, caught cheating and threatened with prison. However, the government, fearing the united former partisans who knew how to wield weapons, chose to come to an agreement with them. In 1997, everyone was given a one-time benefit in the amount of five thousand US dollars and assigned a monthly pension of 200 dollars at the then exchange rate.

Since then, ZANU-PF has had no disagreements with the former soldiers. According to some, they became Robert Mugabe's personal guard. In short, it was no coincidence that veterans led attacks on white farms. They took the lead because among the pogromists there were many young people who had never smelled gunpowder. It looks like this is just a lump hungry for other people's goods, possibly hired for money.

Last and decisive
The opposition - both white farmers and the MDC party - argue that the farm seizures are on the orders of the government. It is significant that the Supreme Court twice ruled to end the illegal occupation and ordered the police to restore order. The police didn't lift a finger. The parliament was dissolved - its term expired on April 11, and, fearing that he would not get a majority in the new elections, the president is in no hurry to clarify the date of the vote. Mugabe openly ignored the law: he publicly supported the veterans and refused to order them to leave the farms.

Moreover, in one of his speeches he directly called whites the enemies of the country. Later, however, he denied it, but there is a television recording of the speech. She is the one who puts everything in its place. A black redistribution of land, mixed with racial hatred, was necessary in order to retain power in one’s hands. The “mine of expropriation” had been in the president’s pocket for a long time, and when the failure of the referendum showed that the government was unpopular, Mugabe moved the hands on the clock mechanism with an unwavering hand. The consequences of the explosion are unpredictable: in neighboring South Africa, where the agrarian question is just as acute, 54 percent of South Africans living in “black slums” near big cities agree with the actions of the Zimbabwean veterans.

The game is going big. Mugabe is ready to sacrifice the rights of minorities, calculating that he will gain more from this than he will lose. 70 thousand Zimbabwean whites, if a target, are not the main one for him: the alliance of whites with the black opposition from the Movement for Democratic Change is what infuriated the president. The regime's only chance of survival is to crush the DDP.

With the redistribution of land, Mugabe hopes to attract the main support of his party - the rural poor: if this succeeds, then the shortage of fuel and rising prices will be forgotten for a while. That is why black members of the MDC are hunted with the same passion as white farmers - bombs are thrown at their cars, they are beaten in the streets. And black farm workers are being terrorized for a reason, but because they support the opposition party. If violence spreads across the country, the regime will have an excellent excuse to crack down on the opposition: black opponents have nowhere to run from Mugabe.
Harare


One of the flower farms taken over by the blacks. (Photo: AP )