When two elephants fight, it's the grass that suffers

By Danielle Nierenberg and Abby Massey

“When two elephants fight, it’s the grass that suffers,” says Gertrude Hambira, Secretary General of the General Agriculture Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ), describing the state of her country since elections two years ago. The elephants in this case are Zimbabwe’s two leaders, Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai, who are currently engaged in a power-sharing agreement. And the grass, according to Hambira, is the nation’s most vulnerable populations: “Farmers, children and those with HIV/Aids.”

The recent turmoil only exemplifies Zimbabwe’s many problems since independence. In the 19th century, European settlers came to the country and found the land to be rich and highly suitable for growing crops. When the United Kingdom presided over what was then Southern Rhodesia, the white minority was given priority in agriculture. Europeans were allocated an estimated 51% of the “best land” and 29.8% was left for Africans, who comprised the vast majority of the population. At its independence in 1980, land reform was a big issue, and Mugabe started making accommodations to reverse past inequalities.

In 2002, amid food shortages and an economic crisis, another land-redistribution policy came into effect that only made things worse. The goal of the reform was to grant the black majority access to the farms, which were still almost all owned by the white minority. But, according to GAPWUZ’s Hambira, the way that the reform has evolved has prompted land seizures and led to human-rights violations, continuing to hurt both communities and the economy.

What many people do not realise about the land reform, Hambira says, is the extent of the atrocities that have occurred while the police and others try to seize land from farmers. That’s where GAPWUZ comes in. As the largest trade union in Zimbabwe, it has been working to improve the lives of farm workers since 1982. Even before land redistribution, the union worked to assure that farmers and farm workers knew their rights and stood up for those who were not being treated fairly.

Hambira explains that, “organising farm workers has not been an easy task,” especially lately, because they have lost their sense of security. Both white and black farmers and farm workers fear for their livelihoods as they are “thrown off the land” and their jobs are taken away.

During the reform, the government has not redistributed land equally, Hambira says. Instead, politically connected black Zimbabweans arrive at farms owned by white farmers and demand their land and their homes. When the white farmers resist giving up their property, the police are sent in, forcing them out of their homes in often unimaginably bloody and violent scenes. The farmers who have worked for the white landowners are also targeted, and many have been tortured and even killed, Hambira explains.

As a result of the land-distribution policies, a farm that once employed 200 farmers would be reduced to 10 and would become an ineffective farm, Hambira explains. Once the rich take over the land, they “fail to utilise it properly”. Thus, what was once a breadbasket of Africa has become a barren land.

GAPWUZ educates farmers about their rights and fights for them. Since there is no real sense of security in Zimbabwe, farmers are fleeing the country in an attempt to find jobs and food. The new farm owners often do not recognise farmer’s associations, nor do they always allow freedom of speech, Hambira says.

Hambira doesn’t necessarily oppose land redistribution, provided the aim is to increase equality. But, she says, “you do not take the land and give it to someone who is rich; it violates other people’s rights”. Putting the land in the wrong hands is just one of Zimbabwe’s problems. In addition, many new landowners are given more than their one allocated farm or have registered the names of family members to avoid the “one man, one farm” legislation.

For more than a decade, the land-reform policy has continued to impact the country with violence and economic disparity. Unfortunately, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has yet to put its foot down. During a meeting in August, they decided to postpone any decision-making to halt the land-reform process in Zimbabwe until 2011. In an earlier ruling, Zimbabwe ignored the SADC when it told 78 white land owners to keep their land, previously taken due to land-reform policy.

Danielle Nierenberg is co-project director of the Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet project (www.nourishingtheplanet.org). Abby Massey is a research intern and MA candidate in American University’s Global Environmental Politics programme.