Zimbabwe farmers brace for further land seizures

They called him "father," a white man who saw no racial boundaries and treated his black workers as his family.

A fourth-generation Zimbabwean, Terry Ford spoke to workers in Shona – the majority language – and had grown up among them. Childhood days were spent playing together in the fields of wheat and maize that once blanketed the landscape.

Now the crops are long gone and the workers of Gowrie Farm are in mourning. Ford was shot dead by a mob of ZANU-PF Party activists supporting President Robert Mugabe's illegal land-seizure program early Monday.

"Terry's workers are devastated – we all are," says his fiancée, Naomi Raaff. "They are saying to me, 'We have lost our father today. Terry was one of the most kind-hearted people in the world, and all he wanted to do was farm.' What has this achieved, other than the loss of a much-loved, innocent man?"

Many people fear that Mr. Mugabe – flush from his election victory, despite claims by the opposition and monitors that it was rigged – has started his new term of office in the way he means to rule the country. They hoped that his hints of reconciliation – urging people to "work joyously" to rebuild the shattered economy, and acknowledging that, whether black or white, "our destiny is one" – meant there would be change.

"We had hoped that certain elements of his speech would translate into positive action on the ground," says Jenni Williams of the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU). "Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be happening that way. Farmers are thinking long and hard about their futures."

Ford had been prevented from farming for the past two years, since the government served notice that it intended to seize his land and property. It is a situation 98 percent of Zimbabwe's 3,500 commercial farmers face. Since the land seizures began in 2000, hundreds of farmers have left. Now, more are contemplating following.

"There is a huge feeling of doom and gloom," says Peter Goosen, vice president of the CFU for Matabeleland South. "We have a real opportunity to make this into a jewel of Africa, but if the land seizures continue, we will be forced to leave. You will see the emigration of Zimbabwe's farmers – a huge number of refugees – and the total collapse of commercial agriculture."

Supporters of the president point to Zimbabwe's colonial history, which left 70 percent of the land owned by the white 5 percent of the population, as justification for the land seizures.

When British colonist Cecil Rhodes conquered the region (later named Rhodesia), white settlers staked out plots for themselves and began to farm commercially. That crushed the black communal farming infrastructure and created a black working class, with the most fertile areas set aside for the whites.

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