by Paul Theroux
Soon after I arrived in Harare a morning headline in the Daily News was ‘GOVERNMENT TO ACQUIRE 95 MORE COMMERCIAL FARMS.’ The text explained that this was not a business deal – no money was changing hands. This was ‘compulsory acquisition as part of the ongoing land reform and resettlement program.’ These ninety-five brought to 3023 the number of commercial farms singled out by the government as ripe for invasion in the past three years. The names of the farms were listed.
The leader of the militant War Veterans’ Association was an angry AIDS-stricken doctor named Chenjerai Hunzvi who had nicknamed himself ‘Hitler.’ Well-documented stories had appeared in Zimbabwe newspapers stating that Hitler Hunzvi’s suburban medical office was used for viciously torturing men who refused to support him. Hunzvi threatened whites and sent gangs to their farms. Hunzvi’s bluster was the irrationality of someone who knows he is doomed, raving in his ill health; yet Mugabe’s government backed him up in his most reckless threats.
So, because he was a white Zimbabwean (and there were many), a farmer who had already been up for hours at his chores would go back to his house for breakfast and, finding his name in the morning aper, could expect a mob of war veterans to camp on his land before lunchtime. If he were lucky they would demand a portion of his property; if he were unlucky they would threaten him with weapons and tell him to leave, screaming (as many of the farm invaders did), ‘This is my farm now!’
This is precisely what happened to Catherine and Ian Buckle, as recounted in Mrs Buckle’s African Tears, which had just appeared in the bookstores. One day in March 2000, three dozen men invaded their farm, singing songs and shouting ‘Hondo’ – the Shona word for ‘war’ and also a popular song by the Zimbabwean singer-composer Thomas Mapfumo. The Buckles had owned the farm for ten years and had been assured on buying it that it was not designated on the government list for resettlement. But that was a detail: events moved quickly. A man introduced himself. ‘I am the one sleeping on your farm.’ The reason for his salutation was that he needed the Buckles’ help: would they give him a ride into town so that he could get some money to pay the other men who were illegally squatting with him? A week or so after that a Zimbabwean flag was hoisted on the property. An African beer hall was built and soon there were drunks on the farm, and a larger squatter camp, and more singing on the premises.
Neighboring farms were occupied. Farmers who resisted were attacked. A number of them were murdered. The Buckles appealed to the government to help them stop the illegal occupation of their land. Nothing was done. No police were sent, though more war vets showed up and demanded that the Buckles loan them their farm truck so that they could go to political rallies to denounce white farmers.
At last, the leader of a drunken gang showed up and chanted, ‘This is my fields! This is my cows! This is my grass! This is my farm!’ He ordered Mrs Buckle to leave her house. ‘This is my house!’ Still, the Buckles resisted his intimidation. But soon after, the defiant group of war vets started a grass fire on the property, and when it overwhelmed the farm and threatened the house, the Buckles’ will was broken. A malevolent man appeared from the smoke and said fiercely, ‘Siya’ – Leave. And so, six months after the first threat the Buckles departed, fearing for their lives, losing everything.
In his introduction to African Tears, Trevor Ncube, editor in chief of the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper, described the story as ‘one family’s struggle against state-sponsored terror.’
All this news was fairly fresh. Less than a year after the Buckles were forced off their farm I had passed near it, outside Marondera.
And then I was in Harare, on my walking tour. On a side street, in a shop that sold African artifacts, I was examining some objects that looked old - that is, used by a practitioner. Any carving that had acquired a distinct patina or was worn smooth by years of handling or had the smoke-smell of use attracted me. Cooking implements -bowls, spoons, stirrers – interested me, and so did wooden tools -clubs, hatchets, digging sticks, stools. I happened to be holding a carved wooden slingshot. Turned upside down it was a figure with a head and wide-apart legs.
‘What’s the story with this?’ I asked the woman at the counter. ‘Is this old?’
She said, ‘See how it’s blackened? It’s been scorched in a fire to harden the wood. It’s Chokwe, I think.’ She thought a moment and added, ‘But I go on the assumption that nothing is old.’
That wise and honest statement from a dealer in artifacts made me trust her. She was a woman of about sixty, white haired, plain spoken, African-born of English parents. Her son was a farmer, and of course worried about his fate, but he had not been invaded. We talked some more. I said I wanted to meet a farmer whose land had been invaded.
‘I know one. He’s rather outspoken. He might talk to you. He’s got a mobile phone in his truck.’
She picked up the phone and made a call to him, explaining my request in a few sentences. Then she listened closely, thanked him, and hung up.
‘He’s rather busy but he’ll be at this coffee shop later this morning.’ She wrote the name of the coffee shop on a piece of paper. ‘He said you’re welcome to join him.’
That was how I met Peter Drummond, a tall white-haired man in his mid-fifties, his weather-beaten face softened by his blue ironic eyes. He had been aged by military service and farm work and the political harassment, which was a condition of being a white farmer in Zimbabwe. He was gentle, but very tough, and full of plans. He had a habit of prefacing a remark by saying, ‘This is a very funny story,’ and then relating something horrific, involving machine guns and blood. ‘Very funny’ usually meant a narrow escape.
He owned a 7000-acre farm outside the town of Norton, which was about fifty miles west of Harare. He grew maize for seed, grew vegetables, raised cattle and pigs, and had a dairy; two of his sons helped him. Peter himself ran the chicken operation. Every week he imported 23,000 day-old chicks from the United States, and these he reared for local consumption, slaughtering them, freezing some, selling others fresh. He trucked 4300 dressed birds, some fresh, some frozen, into Harare every day, and supplied markets, shops, hotels and restaurants. Like many other big farmers he was helping to feed Zimbabwe, but he was not finding it easy.
What concerned Drummond was the war veterans trespassing on his land, the disruption, their violent threats, their drunkenness, their cutting down his trees, killing his animals, frightening his family. And the shortage of diesel fuel meant that he could not operate many of his tractors. This season, a great deal of his land had gone unplowed and unplanted. Weeds grew where there should have been crops.
‘The funny thing is that I was on Japanese TV talking about the situation,’ he said. ‘I was pretty frank. The afternoon of the day it aired I got a death threat.’
‘Verbal or in writing?’
‘Phone rang. African voice. “You’ve been pushing the MDC” ’ – the opposition Movement for Democratic Change - ‘ “We’re going to kill you.” ’
The Movement for Democratic Change and its party leader Morgan Tsvangirai criticized the government for its policy of sanctioning the ilegal farm invasions and turning a blind eye to the violence. The government ruling party reacted by accusing the MDC of being in cahoots with the white farmers and refused to allow them to use rural sports stadiums for political rallies. The reporting of any criticisms was suppressed.
‘So I made a tape of all the news that was appearing on the BBC, Sky News, South African News, and CNN,’ Drummond said. ‘I had about twenty minutes of it, showing what the foreign correspondents were saying about Zimbabwe. And I played the tape to my workers – I’ve got about two hundred of them. I said, “You look at this. It’s what the foreign press is saying. I’m not saying a word. If I get involved I might get killed.” ’
He had bought his first farm in 1975, during the struggle. ‘I didn’t have much money, but lots of farmers were being killed, so farms were cheap. I bought a 3000-acre farm on the never-never.’ He worked the la
nd and assumed he would be there for some time. ‘But we were attacked in 1979 by a group of fifteen men. It’s quite a funny story.’
It was a terrifying story. He was woken by the sound of gunfire, thirty shots, an entire magazine of an AK-47 fired into his cook’s house. ‘Missed him! Providential, I say!’ He had an AK himself. He crept out of the house, which was surrounded by a barrier wall. ‘That was to protect us from rockets. They were using Russian RP-7 rockets, which explode after they penetrate a wall. That way they would explode after the first wall and leave the house intact.’ He took a brick out of the barrier wall and emptied a magazine at the intruders. ‘Two of my men started shooting. Everyone was shooting.’ The fifteen attackers fled. And when the Farmers’ Reserve Rescue Team hurried to help they found an arms cache on his property – weapons, explosives and landmines – enough for the all-out assault that was thwarted.
‘Like I say, this is quite a funny story,’ he repeated. ‘My boys were five, four and one. My wife went to wake them up. My son Garth said, “What’s all the noise?” “It’s nothing,” my wife says. Garth turns over and says, “Dad will shoot them.” He was so calm, we were all calm.’
He sold that farm and bought another, sharing pastures with a friend on a large piece of adjacent land. These two farms were sold to the government for resettlement.
‘We had reassurances from the government that when we bought again there would be no more resettlement issues - no invasions.’
With the proceeds of the sale he bought the land he presently farmed, the 7000-acre Hunyani Estate. He planted trees, he built a house to live in and a machine shop and the chicken operation. He plowed, he introduced cattle, and in one section some wild game - eland and impala. All this investment meant he had to borrow heavily. He was paying off a housing loan as well as a half-a-million-dollar overdraft at the bank.
‘Then we were invaded,’ he said, smiling grimly. ‘It’s quite funny, really. The guy’s not really a war veteran. He was a driver during the struggle. Just looking for free land.’
All this time, sitting in the coffee shop, I was scribbling notes in the little notebook on my knee.
Drummond said, ‘Aren’t you hungry?’
I said I was.
‘Come to lunch,’ he said. ‘I’m meeting my family in about ten minutes in a restaurant near here. It’s pretty good food. I sell them their chickens.’
Ten minutes later I was sitting at a big table eating roast chicken with the Drummond family – Peter, his wife, Lindsay, two of his four boys, Troy and Garth, and Garth’s girlfriend Lauren.
To be so suddenly and casually gathered into the bosom of this generous family on a hot day in Harare was one of the tenderest episodes of my trip. The hospitality of farmers in the bush of southern Africa is well known, but this was more than hospitality. I was a stranger, and sharing a meal is peacemaking, so their including me at their table represented a profound ceremony of acceptance and good will.
‘This is kind of a family council,’ Drummond said.
The specific purpose for their gathering, their deciding how to spend their spring vacation, made the meal even more significant. They talked about what they might do - go camping in the bush, visit Lake Kariba in the north, drive to the coast of Mozambique for a swimming holiday, stay on the farm together. ‘We have to do it cheap! We have no money!’ The discussion went round and round and to a loner on a safari through Africa this cozy manifestation of family life was like heaven.
After they settled on the trip to Mozambique, Peter Drummond said to his son Garth, ‘I told Paul about the time we were attacked by those fifteen guys.’
‘And you weren’t scared,’ I said.
Garth said, ‘I was never scared.’
Lindsay said, ‘We never made the war an issue. I just said, “If there’s trouble, get under your beds.” ’
‘Still, ten percent of the white farmers were killed and, of the rest, half of them left the country,’ Lauren said.
Lauren was a woman in her mid-twenties, attractive and forthright, brought up on a farm in rural Zimbabwe.
‘My father’s farm was occupied by invaders,’ she told me. ‘It was called Chipadzi Farm. My father had owned it for years. A local chap was Chief Chipadzi. One day he came to my father and said, “This is my farm” – just claimed it as his own. The government was against us. What could we do? My father and mother emigrated to Australia – Toowoomba, west of Brisbane. But they’re not farming anymore.’
‘What happened to Chipadzi Farm?’
Drummond said, ‘That’s rather a funny story. Tell him, Lauren.’
‘We went by it not long ago. There’s a little planting, not much – small patches of maize here and there. Just subsistence.’
They were back to hoes and hand weeding. But her father’s mechanized farm had produced enough maize to feed 1000 people.
‘The trouble these days is that we don’t have decent weapons,’ Drummond said. ‘We used to have AKs and back-up from the security forces. But if we have a problem now the police don’t help us.’
‘We’ve had war vets with AKs walking around our garden,’ Lindsay said. ‘I see them all the time. Trying to frighten us. I felt more secure before, during the struggle.’
‘I’ve got five big Combretum trees,’ Drummond said. ‘They’re indigenous, very pretty. I love those trees. Well, one Sunday we were coming home from church and saw a war vet there, just a local drunk. He had cut down one of my trees. It left a big gap. It was to send a message, see. But that made me angrier than almost anything I could think of. Came to my house and cut down my own tree!’
The drunk had another annoying habit. Whenever he needed money he met with local Africans and sold them parcels of Drummond’s farm.
‘They pitch up all the time, showing me pieces of paper that say that they now own some of my land,’ Drummond said. ‘You should come out and see them. It’s really quite funny.’
‘I’d love to invade your farm,’ I said, and we agreed on a day.
Since tourists and white hunters and even overland travelers were avoiding Zimbabwe I was curious to know what the minister of tourism was doing to counter the impression that Zimbabwe was a black hole. Impersonating a harmless journalist, I asked to see the man who held this post and to my surprise he agreed to see me. This was Edward Chindor-Chininga, Member of Parliament and Minister for Environment and Tourism.
When I went to the ministry, a secretary greeted me and asked me to wait – ‘the minister is running late’ – and I sat on the leather sofa in his outer office, put my head back and went to sleep. I awoke, refreshed, a half-hour later, ready to meet the man.
The minister was young and fat, hardly thirty and personable, wearing a tight dark suit and a silk tie. He was from Kanyemba, at the northeast corner of Zimbabwe, on the Zambezi.
‘Don’t the Two-Toed Va-doma people live up there?’ I asked.
He said that was correct but had nothing to add to what I already knew – a genetic trait in the hobbling, limping tribe produced people with strange split-apart feet, literally cleft footed.
The minister himself was a member of the Shona tribe and was quick to point out that the Shona were losing their cultural values and traditional beliefs. ‘People say our beliefs are devilish or what-what. But you can’t run away from your good culture.’
‘Give me an example of your good culture.’
‘The belief that no family can exist without respect for ancestors.’
‘But I believe that myself,’ I said.
‘I see how you people in the United States mourn your dead.’
‘Of course we do. Everyone in the world mourns their dead,’ I said.
‘And they must always be consulted, because ancestors control and influence our day-to-day life.’
‘I don’t know about “influence.” ’
‘Seriously influence,’ the minister said. ‘If there is a problem in a family here – a boy in prison or a girl unhappy – we
consult our ancestors and find we can heal the problem. If something is wrong, I myself go to my home village and see my mondhoro’ – the healer, but the Shona word also meant lion.
This healer was the repository of all local history and especially knew the lineage of everyone in the village. The minister emphasized that the mondhoro had no books, nothing written: the history was all in his head. And so hearing of a certain person’s difficulty he could relate it to something that had happened in the past – a long-dead ancestor who was exerting a malign influence on the present. I liked this belief for its completeness and for its insistence that no one died: the dead were ever present.
‘We also have animals who help us,’ the minister said. ‘Every African in Zimbabwe has a link with an animal. When people meet here they often ask, “What is your totem?” ’
So I asked him, ‘What is your totem?’
‘A certain mouse,’ the minister said. ‘It is the one animal I cannot eat. For some people it is an eland, or a zebra, or an elephant. Mine is a specific mouse – nhika – I don’t know the name in English. It is very tiny. It has a white patch on its head. Some people, they eat it, but not myself, no.’
I mentioned to him that buses in Zimbabwe sometimes had an animal painted on the back.
‘Those are totems,’ he said. ‘So you see our people are respectful of animals because of their totems.’
‘How do you explain all the poaching, then?’
‘People are hungry. The economy is way down, in a bad situation,’ he said, and then he became cheerful. ‘There are benefits, though! The situation shows us that we need to be self-reliant. No one outside Zimbabwe will necessarily come to our rescue. We will have to learn to help ourselves.’