US embassy cable - 02HARARE1309

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HARARE 001309 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EAGR, ECON, PGOV, PHUM, ZI, Land Reform 
SUBJECT: RESETTLEMENT ON THE FARMS:  THE REALITY ON THE 
GROUND 
 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED.  PLEASE PROTECT ACCORDINGLY. 
 
 1. (SBU) Summary: A visit to four farms in a prime 
agricultural area 2 hours from Harare reveals that chaos 
reigns, and productivity by the new settlers hovers barely 
above zero.  There is no rhyme nor reason to the occupations, 
and the newly resettled show little desire or ability to 
carry out even minimal crop production.  Stick huts have been 
built randomly across previously productive fields. 
Settlers' crops are few in number, haphazardly planted, and 
poorly tended.  White commercial farmers express bewilderment 
at how the rest of the world can stand by and watch their 
deliberate victimization without offering any hope or relief. 
 End summary. 
 
2. (SBU) On May 23-24, econoff visited several farms in the 
Karoi area, which was once a prime commercial cereal and 
tobacco-growing region.  Of the properties visited, one 
farmer has been run completely off of his property by war 
veterans and settlers, a second has been confined by settlers 
to his homestead but not allowed to conduct any operations, a 
third has had several "settlements" established on his land 
but has been allowed to continue farming part of his 
property, and a fourth has not yet suffered incursions by 
settlers or war veterans.  In Karoi, at least, there appears 
to be little rhyme or reason as to which farms are targeted 
-- there is no differentiation based on political affiliation 
of the landowner, existence of desirable infrastructure, 
resistance to the resettlement scheme by landowners, or even 
apparent suitability for specific crops.  Although the 
drought has doubtless had some effect on the quality of 
crops, the radical difference between the condition of 
settlers' fields and those of commercial farmers who still 
remain on their land is remarkable.  Even beyond the contrast 
between the levels of actual husbandry, there is no 
indication that any "settlers" in the area have planted -- 
much less reaped -- enough crops to support even their own 
nuclear families until the next harvest. 
 
3. (SBU) One landowner was evicted from his farm in the early 
stages of the land acquisition exercise.  He had initially 
opposed settlement by the occupiers and sustained a serious 
gash across his face from a settler's panga -- machete -- 
before being forced to vacate.  Since his departure, his 
20-hectare patch of coffee bushes -- now entering their 
fourth season, which would produce the first productive crop 
-- has been neglected since the farmer has not been allowed 
to return, and his employees have not been allowed to water 
the trees.  The trees, loaded with a bumper crop of beans 
despite the season-long neglect, are dying amid the 
waist-high weeds that are choking the fields.  There are 
currently no plans by anyone to harvest the crop.  One 
conservative estimate is that over $80,000 US -- badly needed 
forex -- is rotting in full sight of those who claim to be 
"land-hungry farmers."  The image is startling, given the GOZ 
rhetoric regarding how the new economy will be driven by the 
newly-settled farmers. 
 
4. (SBU) The second farm visited by econoff comprises about 
1100 hectares, of which 400 are arable.  The arable land has 
for years been under a tobacco/maize rotation, while the 
remainder had been stocked, at significant expense, with a 
wide range of game (eland, sable antelope, kudu, giraffe, 
etc.) to support a wildlife/safari operation.  Since last 
year's growing season, when the occupiers took up residence, 
the farmer has not been allowed access to any of his land, 
and has been confined to his homestead by the war vets and 
settlers .  Even this sanctuary was breached, when a settler 
demanding easier access to "his" fields battered down the 
farmer's front and back gates with repeated blows from a 
tractor.  A quick tour of the property showed numerous 
stick-and-thatch huts thrown up randomly amid formerly 
fertile fields, with the settlers' crops totalling, at most, 
several acres.  Prime land seized after last year's tobacco 
preparation -- i.e., fertilized, plowed, furrowed and 
irrigated -- now lies under a dense, uniform blanket of weeds 
and brush.  The game has been either hunted by poachers or 
left to stray after the settlers cut holes in the game 
fences.  Two giraffe calves, fit for neither sport nor table, 
were killed -- one left to rot next to the farmer's driveway 
and the other cut up for meat to feed the poachers' hunting 
dogs.  The farmer has recently decided to leave his homestead 
and has been moving some of his personal property -- 
including household furniture -- out of the house.  After 
some settlers noticed the furnishings leaving the property, 
the grassland immediately bordering the farmer's homestead 
was set ablaze, leaving a wide swath of destruction.  The 
farmer expects his home to be completely looted within a 
matter of hours after his departure.  As an aside, several of 
the settlers approached the farmer in recent weeks to state 
that they had made a mistake trying to grow crops on his 
farm, and asking for the farmer's intervention to "pull 
strings" and get them re-located to a better farm.  Rebuffed 
in this request, the settlers then stated that they were 
hungry, since they had harvested no crops, and asked the 
farmer to buy them maize-meal. 
 
5. (SBU) The third farmer has been under siege by a 
contingent of settlers and war vets for the past two growing 
seasons.  This farmer, who bought his property in 1992, has 
markedly improved the level of his laborers' accommodations 
through personal investment, and has supported infrastructure 
developments for all segments of the farming community.  He 
built and staffed a school for laborers' children and 
upgraded all labor housing to brick buildings with running 
water, fulfilling his promise to provide adequate housing to 
all his labor before he began constructing an upgraded house 
for his own family.  He has purchased milling machinery to 
process sunflower seed oil for the entire community of 
growers and has served as the local fuel delivery point 
person for the Zimbabwe Farmers' Union.  When the occupation 
began, this farmer's initial response was not to give an 
inch.  He experienced a steadily growing level of violence, 
including abuse of his children at all-night "pungwes." The 
farmer and twenty of his laborers later sustained severe 
beatings by a mob of war vets and occupiers last September. 
Since that time, he has decided to make as much use of his 
land as possible in hope of riding the situation out.  The 
farm now supports three separate "villages" of settlers, 
while approximately half of the farm laborers and their 
families have been chased off the land.  The farmer has been 
limited to sometimes random determinations of which fields he 
can use and which would be "settled."  Again, huts have been 
erected haphazardly across some of the most fertile land, 
although crops being grown on these fields cover a mere 
fraction of the land siezed, with the remainder reverting to 
bush.  In one case, the farmer was forced to build a fence 
around a settler's weed-choked cotton patch in order for his 
cattle to graze in the rest of the field, since the settler 
accused the farmer of letting his cattle eat the settler's 
cotton.  The farmer estimates that last year -- between crop 
losses, forced sale of livestock at the demands of the 
settlers, unproductive fields, and inputs invested in land 
subsequently seized -- his financial losses ran at 
$74,242,000.00 zim dollars (approximately U.S. $185,000). 
While he admits that his output was higher than average -- 
since he double-cropped some fields while pioneering some 
non-traditional methods in others -- his losses for one farm 
in one season can be extrapolated country-wide. 
 
6. (SBU) The last farm visited has not been subjected to 
settlement, although it has been listed and de-listed several 
times.  Currently, the farmer rotates tobacco and maize and 
grazes cattle.  Although the farmer did manage to harvest his 
tobacco crop, he has not sold it since the current pricing 
and exchange rate structure do not provide any profit.  The 
farmer has started to prepare his land for next season, and 
has reported that several farmers around his area are doing 
likewise.  However, this prep work is more in the nature of 
an insurance policy.  If the farmers do not prepare seed beds 
now, they will be unable to plant anything in September, even 
if the situation is stabilized.  If the situation remains 
chaotic, however, with no farmer sure if he can reap the crop 
he sows, none of these commercial farmers intend to plant, 
thus depriving Zimbabwe of needed food and forex-generating 
exports. 
 
7. (SBU) Econoff's conversations with the farmers repeatedly 
elicited requests for help from the USG.  One farmer stated 
that he could not believe that the "free world" could stand 
by and watch while the GOZ destroyed an entire productive 
segment of its population.  He pointed out that a bailout for 
the GOZ's de facto theft and irrefutable mismanagement -- 
even if it were to come sometime in the future -- would be 
exponentially more expensive, and help would never reach 
those citizens who are now being deliberatey bankrupted. 
Other farmers insisted that the best way to get any response 
from the GOZ would be to extend existing travel sanctions to 
the children of the ruling elite, many of whom, they allege, 
are attending schools in the US.  In response to econoff's 
arguments that a liberal education is a valid way to change 
young minds, they countered that the children of the ruling 
elite, once they get out of Zimbabwe, are highly unlikely 
ever to return.  While escape is a goal of many Zimbabweans, 
it is an option currently unavailable to most of the 
remaining commercial farmers. 
 
8. (SBU) Comment:  These snapshots offer a view in microcosm 
of the uncertainties reigning in Zimbabwe today.  On an 
economic level, the message is clear -- the "fast track" 
resettlement has been a disaster that will cause long-term 
food shortfalls and continued economic decline.  On the 
social level, it is clear that the white Zimbabwean 
commercial farmers risk extinction, but it is not clear that 
the resettled black Zimbabwean communal farmers will be 
better off from this process.  The only unaswered question is 
whether the ongoing process will slow or be reversed before 
the damage to Zimbabwe, and its future, is irreparable, or 
if, indeed, the country has already passed the point of no 
return.  End comment. 
SULLIVAN