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"In more recent times whole nations had this tactic employed against them.
Stalin's exportation of the whole Ukrainian harvest to Western Europe which
resulted in seven million people dying in one winter was the most pitiful."
The people of Zimbabwe need South Africa, Sadc, the UN or anyone that
can assist to step into the breach very soon. Or are they going to
prevaricate and pontificate until it is "too late?"
Article By Ben Freeth, Former Commercial Farmers Union (CFU)
regional executive in Mashonaland West
OPINION
Zimbabwe Independent (Harare)
Distributed by All Africa Global Media (AllAfrica.com)
January 17, 2003 5:35pm
The post-election slogan of "chave chimurenga" (the war continues) is
churned out ad nauseum.
President Robert Mugabe's statement at his party's conference in Chinhoyi
was "our survival is an ongoing war".
The questions to be asked are:
Who are the opponents?
What does the war intend to achieve? and
What is the modus operandi of the war?
On the first question, the opponents are anyone who is not actively part of
the party. It is not good enough in the communist system to be apolitical.
The party the world over works on the principle that if you are not for it,
you are, necessarily, against it. Whether you like it or not, the party is
at war with you if you do not actively support what it is trying to do.
The second question is answered simply. The war intends to achieve the
destruction of all opposition by making the opposition an extension of
itself.
The third question is the one I wish to dwell on. The modus operandi of the
party is simply to starve all opposition into submission so that individuals
become an active part of the party if they wish to get food. The precedent
to this, starting in ancient times, is the classic siege of a fortified city
or a fortress which, given time, was very effective.
In more recent times whole nations had this tactic employed against them.
Stalin's exportation of the whole Ukrainian harvest to Western Europe which
resulted in seven million people dying in one winter was the most pitiful.
For Zimbabwe though, hunger has been used very successfully far more
recently. Plans were well laid with communist North Korean instructors
arriving in Zimbabwe soon after Independence in 1981. The Fifth Brigade, a
private army with different uniforms, different equipment, and different
communication systems to other units, was made ready with, in Mugabe's
words, "a political orientation". By 1983 the massacres known as Gukuruhundi
started. Curfews were imposed, shops were shut, transportation was stopped
and drought relief food was blocked.
In 1984 in Matabeleland South 15 000 troops and police laid siege to a
population of approximately 400 000. At a meeting with local Ndebele people,
a Fifth Brigade officer is reported to have said regarding the starvation
policy: "First you will eat your chickens, then your goats, then your
cattle, then your donkeys. Then you will eat your children..."
The Bishop of Bulawayo charged the government with employing a policy of
"systematic starvation". Gukurahundi continued over a period of four years.
Thousands of civilians were either starved to death or were murdered. It was
only at the end of 1987 that the late Joshua Nkomo finally capitulated and
signed the "Unity Accord".
In Zimbabwe today the starvation that we see is only the start. The famine
early warning system reports that our cereal gap is now 907 000 tonnes.
The UN reports that our food crop plantings are less than 50% of normal.
The starvation we face in 2003/2004 is horrific.
Anyone wishing to control food supply needs to cover three areas: First,
food production needs to be significantly reduced. This has been done
already in Zimbabwe with plantings of food crops down more than 50%. It was
simple to achieve. The big farms where at least 50% of the maize and over
90% of soya beans, sugar cane, beef, dairy, poultry, wheat and seed crops
were produced were invaded and the farmers and their workers beaten,
imprisoned, and in some cases murdered, and their crops commandeered. In
excess of 75% of these commercial farmers have been driven off their land.
To reduce production amongst small-scale farmers, the most effective policy
is to make seed and fertiliser difficult to procure. To this end the GMB
bought nearly half the country's maize seed and the state controls the price
of maize produced by the farmer. The costs of production are over $200 000
per tonne for an average commercial four-tonne per hectare crop, and the
producer price is $28 000 per tonne.
This leaves the farmer with a net loss of $88 000 for each hectare that he
puts in the ground. It has now become illegal to market maize except through
the GMB. Any maize found on farm is regularly seized by the state. Any
farmer therefore legally producing and marketing maize is going to do so at
a major loss. Tillage units were promised to the "new" farmers but only a
handful of tractors were allocated to each district.
The second area is that food retailers and distributors need to be
controlled. The most effective way to do this is by making it illegal to
sell food above a gazetted price. In Zimbabwe this has been done so that
most basic commodities have to be sold on the black market at exorbitant
prices.
Police road blocks have been set up to stop the movement of food into these
markets and party militia have been stationed in many areas to stop farmers
who are off their farms from bringing food to their workers where they are
still there. War veterans, Green Bombers and the Youth Brigade now monitor
not only GMB outlets but also deliveries of maize and maize meal in rural
areas.
The third area is that importers of food need to be hampered, delayed and
controlled. Individuals or companies wishing to bring food into Zimbabwe
first need to get a licence to do so. This is very difficult to get.
If an individual does not have a licence he is only allowed to bring in 20kg
of maize a month. This is not enough to feed his family, let alone anyone
else.
That just leaves the aid agencies. Again, to import food, special licences
are required. These in some cases take months to acquire.
There are special conditions set regarding the type of food allowed, ie no
GM maize. Long tailbacks occur at customs with lorries loaded with this
vital commodity taking days to clear. Distribution is another nightmare,
with party youths seizing food and local authorities trying to control who
gets what, based on political affiliation. Meanwhile the country begins to
starve.
But with all this going on - some of the measures subtle, others downright
obvious - it seems incredible that Zimbabwe's neighbouring states, and
especially South Africa, continue to condone the war taking place against
the Zimbabwean people. Those that naively blame the starvation on "misguided
policy" or "drought" or even "incompetence" need to think again.
The starvation in Zimbabwe is maliciously engineered. The people are under
siege just as those towns and fortresses were besieged in ancient time. The
people of Zimbabwe need South Africa, Sadc, the UN or anyone that can assist
to step into the breach very soon. Or are they going to prevaricate and
pontificate until it is "too late?"
Zimbabwe Independent (Harare), AllAfrica.com, January 17, 2003
http://allafrica.com/stories/200301170787.html
For personal and academic use only.
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