Wild Life | 30 May 2009

Zimbabwe

‘Ah, and no cake to offer you!’ Mrs H— said. ‘I would have baked one if only I’d known you were coming.’ It was teatime in Zimbabwe. A golden afternoon sunlight streamed across the shrivelled garden lawn and the mopani woodland beyond. Mr H— chipped in, ‘But of course the telephone is cut off, so you could not have called.’ We all made polite noises but one thing was clear. This elderly couple had no cakes to bake. I looked into their faces and saw they were starving. A neighbour had encouraged me to visit the couple to boost their spirits. He had said, ‘I’m very worried about them. I won’t be surprised if I hear they’ve shot or hanged themselves.’ So my group drove over there and as the car entered the drive we found them, looking suspicious and scared.

Mr and Mrs H— (to reveal their names would put them at more risk than they already are) settled in Zimbabwe 29 years ago, investing all they had into a livestock and game farm. ‘We liked the people,’ the man said. South Africa was becoming tense and, with the end of the civil war, Zimbabwe seemed a good bet. In other words, the family had not acquired the land unfairly in the colonial past; they paid for it after independence.

When Mugabe launched his ‘fast track land reform’ nine years ago Zanu-PF war veterans invaded the H— farm. No compensation was ever paid and dozens of African families were resettled on the land. This was a rare example of redistribution. Most properties stolen from white landowners went to Mugabe’s political cronies, who had no interest at all in farming. All they ever did was loot the machinery, use their party credentials to access farm ‘loans’ that were never repaid and use the white people’s houses for weekend barbeques.