THE DOUBLE STANDARDS OF ''mugabe and the generals''

Timothy, 24 months, son of evicted farm worker Molly Tsoka, waits in front of an improvised kitchen on the side of the road outside Mvurwi village, about 130 km (81 miles) west of Harare, May 1, 2008.



The food insecurity paradox

12/10/08


Robert Mugabe has asked white farmers from South Africa to come to the aid of corrupt absentee ZANU (PF) landlords in Zimbabwe.



The very greedy persons who occupy farms, misappropriated from the relatives and friends of these South African farmers and subjected Zimbabwean white farmers to summary evictions, now seek the assistance of their kith and kin to assist ZANU (PF) cultivate crops on stolen properties that are now derelict. How many of the white South Africans farmers are displaced Zimbabweans?



Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Lulu Xingwana has asked AgriSA’s white commercial farmers at their Congress to join the Agriculture Department in coming to the aid of Zimbabwean farmers to prevent a food crisis.



What an oxymoron!



Competent Zimbabwean professional farmers, some who were evicted from their properties as early as last week now sit in apartments in Harare and elsewhere, yet ZANU (PF) has the audacity to invite foreign white farmers to come and abet tyranny. Agricultural knowledge and skills are the only variables missing in Zimbabwe’s food deficit matrix.



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Farm workers at a farm in Karoi about 200 kilometers west of Harare are driven away to their homesteads following threats by War Veterans to occupy the farm owned by a white farmer who refused to be named for fear of victimization in Karoi, Zimbabwe Monday, April, 7, 2008.


Karoi under seige by ZANu-PF functionaries

13/10/08

Victimization of perceived supporters of the MDC still continues in Karoi, 7 months after the disputed March 29 elections.

It is reported that the notorious Zanu PF member of parliament for Magunje, Frank Ndambakuwa allegedly dismissed 25 of his farm laborers from his Ian Crocker Farm, accusing them of voting for the MDC during the March 29 elections.

Ndambakuwa is responsible for spearheading the violent crackdown against MDC supporters in Magunje and Hurungwe East post March 29 and is personally responsible for the April shooting of Peterson Kwenda that resulted in him losing his left leg.

Victimisation is set to continue since the government, responsible for organizing and funding the brutual post March 29 onslaught did not give the order for the violence and victimization to be stopped. As a result animosity will continue between supporters from Zanu PF and MDC, leaving the possibility of reconciliation a faraway dream.

The province of Mashonaland West, where Karoi falls in recorded a significantly high number of incidents of political violence and is where the first murder case of an MDC supporter was recorded.

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A young man herding cattle in Masvingo, 2006.




Hunger stalking villagers in Masvingo Province



With faint grass-lit torches twinkling in the dark, a group of villagers mumble in the dark, as the clock ticks away at 0430 in the morning. From a distance, faint voices also accompany another illumination, convincing visitors that the area is spooky.

Heading to the nearest bus pick up point at Gonye Township in Gutu East, some three kilometers away, three different groups of people are groping for wild fruits in the wee hours of the night.


In order to ward off competition from fellow villagers and wild animals, they had to come this time to gather some Chakata fruits, the only source of survival for the villagers for the past two months.


"The early bird catches the worm. If you come the next morning, there would be none. If you snooze, you lose. It is now survival of the fittest, a dog-eat-dog scenario," said Mavis Mareva, a villager also scrunching for wild fruits.


Mareva, a widow, says the wild fruit has been the only food for her and her three children as they make porridge out of the fruit.


On better days, their supper would be boiled vegetables or unripe paw paws which they peel and add some salt to taste.


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