Deadline looms for Zimbabwe's white farmers

They gathered around Cathy Buckle's kitchen table to say goodbye. Ms Buckle and a fellow white farmer, Thomas Martin, his wife and Mr Martin's last two black workers.

"The eyes of all the people around my table were filled with tears as they (Mr and Mrs Martin) paid off their last two workers," Ms Buckle said yesterday. "They had shared so much and I could hardly bear to watch their last handshakes or listen to their final good-byes."

As the 8 August deadline looms for nearly 3,000 white farmers in Zimbabwe to move off their farms and surrender them to President Robert Mugabe's supporters, Mr Martin has nothing much to pack for his impending eviction, except perhaps his clothes.

He has lost all hope and inspiration to continue fighting for his land. Come Saturday and he and his wife are off to New Zealand to start a new life.

Mr Martin's farm, near Marondera in Mashonaland East, which he has owned for the past 23 years, was occupied by President Mugabe's militant supporters last year and they looted everything they could lay their hands on.

Mr Martin, 67, has lost everything he has worked for, his farmhouse, fencing, timber plantations, farm buildings, dams, cattle, dip-tanks, tractors, ploughs, fuel and tools. He has lost all his laying hens, their feed and all the equipment in the runs. Ms Buckle said: "There has not been the slightest indication from our government that they will change their minds and stop this catastrophic situation. Even the fact of six million starving people already needing food aid will not deter them."

White commercial farmers were ordered to stop all farming activities on 10 May. They were given 45 days from that date to vacate their properties or risk two-year jail terms. The deadline expires on 8 August, and evictions are expected to start on 10 August.

Unlike the Martins, Cathy Buckle is defiantly waiting for the bailiffs. "I am not going anywhere until they throw me out," she said yesterday.

Neighbouring Mozambique has offered white farmers fleeing Zimbabwe parcels of land leased tax-free. Around 20 have taken up the offer. Not 58-year-old farmer Collin Shandy. Starting again is not for him, he said. "Where must I go to? I am Zimbabwean and the only difference is that I am not black..

"I have farmed for 40 years. My farm is my only insurance and pension. I don't even own another home elsewhere except my farmhouse."

Jenni Williams, the spokes-woman for Justice in Agriculture (JAG), a body fighting for the rights of farmers, said at least 60 per cent of Zimbabwe's remaining white farmers were prepared to defy the order to move off their properties on Saturday.

"There has been no indication that farmers would be allowed to remain on their properties," Ms Williams said. "Signals are that the full wrath of the law will be made to bear on all farmers who remain in their homes after Saturday."

It is still unclear how Mr Mugabe's government will actually deal with farmers who defy the deadline. A police spokes-man, Wayne Bvudzijena, was recently quoted as saying the police were mobilising for mass evictions.

The Mugabe land policies, which have meant most of his relatives, friends and cronies getting large, prime farms seized from the whites at the expense of needy landless blacks, has exacerbated the food crisis in Zimbabwe, which worsens by the day.

Ms Buckle and Mr Shandy agree on the need for land redistribution in Zimbabwe, where whites controlled more than 65 per cent of the 10 million acres of prime farming land.

But they want a transparent and sustainable land reform process which does not further impoverish Zimbabwe. If they had been offered fair compensation for their land, they say they would probably have surrendered it without any squabbles. But not in Mr Mugabe's scheme of things.

"Only a miracle will stop this mass eviction of farmers on the 10th of August" Ms Buckle said "If you are religious I humbly ask that you pray for us, for thousands of farm workers and their families."