International Zimbabwe: White Farmers in The Former "Breadbasket of Africa" Frustrated as Government Fails to Honor Compensation For Mugabe’s Brutal Land Grab.

With modern hybrid seeds, chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, technologically advanced and reliable machinery and irrigation equipment, it isn’t that difficult. I’ve got friends who can barely tie their own boots who average 200+ bushels an acre and they don’t do a damn thing half the year.
You'd have a point if the Zimbabwean government was even remotely competent.
 
I still don't get what the ordeal is. It's farming... fucking farming. There's machinery to manoeuvre and a certain amount of technical skill and know-how required, but it's not rocket science either. There's no reason black Zimbabweans can't do the jobs, especially when years have passed and replacements should have had plenty of time to receive training. I'm not saying it was right of them to push out their white countrymen, I just can't wrap my head around the logic of "We need the magical white people to come back again so our farms can work!" No... you just need to learn farming...


You're such a genius. If there's nominal skill involved in farming, it should have been easy for the replacement farmers to pick up in the nearly 20 years since the white farmers left.

lol did you really just post that?
 
Protests highlight failure of post-Mugabe leadership to reform Zimbabwe
By Geoff Hill | August 14, 2019

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It has been nearly two years since ailing President Robert Mugabe was driven from power, but the problems he bequeathed to Zimbabwe over 37 years of autocratic rule and economic mismanagement are proving harder to eradicate.

The United Nations office in Harare this month launched an appeal for more than $300 million in emergency aid to fend off starvation in a country once dubbed “the breadbasket of Africa.”

U.N. Ambassador Bishow Parajuli said the funds were needed to cover the humanitarian needs of 3.7 million people through April.

The struggles of daily life are easy to see. Power is cut for 18 or more hours every day, vehicles line up for miles at dry gas stations, and few goods are stocked on store shelves.

Most of the would-be shoppers have no cash because the state’s Reserve Bank banned the use of American dollars and South African rands, reintroduced a Zimbabwean dollar and then revealed that the government lacks the funds to print the new notes.

Frustration at the dashed hopes for post-Mugabe prosperity is building. The main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), plans a major march through Harare on Friday to protest the record of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, a onetime ally of Mr. Mugabe who emerged as his successor after an army-backed popular uprising in 2017. Mr. Mnangagwa won a disputed election last year after promising an era of investment, openness and “good days ahead” for long-suffering Zimbabweans.

MDC leader Nelson Chamisa, who says Mr. Mnangagwa has squandered the country’s vast potential, is demanding talks with the government as the economy deteriorates. Fears are mounting that Friday’s demonstrations could become violent.

“The cost of doing nothing far exceeds the cost of doing something,” Mr. Chamisa said this week. “We must change our unmerited circumstances and harsh realities of joblessness, hopelessness and poverty.”

As in Cuba and Venezuela, the government blames its problems on “outside forces,” notably the United States, Britain and Australia, all of which have travel bans on key members of the Mnangagwa government. The president insists the pain will bring substantial payoffs in the near future.

“We have made a return back into the international fold after two decades of isolation,” he said in a national address last week. “We are on the right path, and our ambitious vision is within grasp.

“Painful but necessary reforms have been made in the year gone by,” he said. “While the beginning may be painful, the medium term will bring about growth and jobs.”

But the government’s own statistics underscore the depth of the crisis. Annual inflation is pegged at over 175%, energy prices have soared and the economy is on track to shrink for the first time in more than a decade. The World Bank projects Zimbabwe’s gross domestic product to fall by 3% next year, the worst forecast for any country in the region.

The country badly needed a change of course after the Mugabe years, critics say, but the current government has yet to come up with a coherent reform agenda.

“They are behaving like a drowning person who is clutching at straws,” Harare-based economist Prosper Chitambara told the German news service Deutsche Welle. “Most of the policies that have been implemented are ad hoc, latching from one policy measure to another without addressing the structural policy impediments.”

Deep-rooted dysfunction

Zimbabweans say the country’s troubles are all the more painful given the euphoria that greeted Mr. Mugabe’s ouster in November 2017.

“I was on the street,” said Ida Chiweshe, who runs a store in a village east of Harare. “When Mugabe left office, we went into Harare and there were tens of thousands of people on the road, in the parks, everywhere. We danced and sang, we were black and white together and just so happy.”

Now, she said, when she is able to stock her shop with groceries, customers can’t afford basics such as toothpaste, cooking oil and cornmeal. “Prices double every month, sometimes in a few weeks,” she said.

Mrs. Chiweshe said things are worse now than under Mr. Mugabe.

“We don’t want him back, but we can’t go on like this,” she said.

Both Mr. Mnangagwa’s supporters and defenders acknowledge the country’s dysfunction has deep roots that long preceded the current government. Economists say the problems began in 2000 when Mr. Mugabe forced nearly all of the commercial farmers off their estates in a chaotic, coercive land reform program.

The mostly white landowners were poached by other countries in Africa and, ironically, Zimbabwe now must find hard currency to buy corn and other foodstuffs from the same growers who are now prospering in Zambia and Mozambique.

Despite the food shortages, millions of acres of land lie vacant. Mr. Mugabe was a teacher in his youth and implemented one of Africa’s best education systems, which taught Shakespeare, calculus and physics — but not farming. With no jobs at home, school graduates sought work in Britain and the U.S. and across other parts of Africa. An estimated 3 million Zimbabweans live in South Africa alone.

After the farms, mines and some of the key factories were nationalized and doled out to Mr. Mugabe’s allies, many subsequently failed, leading to a shortage of exports and a critical lack of foreign exchange to pay for electricity imported from South Africa. A brutal drought has only exacerbated the dire situation.

Under white rule in the 1950s, the country known as Rhodesia set up a drought protection program. Thousands of acres under irrigation grew wheat in the mild winter and corn — Zimbabwe’s staple diet — in the summer. Most of the irrigated farms were vacated during the period of land seizures. Even where sprinklers are in place, farmers say there is no electricity to pump water.

The Trump administration has refused to engage with the Mnangagwa government since several demonstrators were killed at a peaceful protest in Harare last year and says the culprits must be brought to justice. Washington has also called for an end to the intimidation of political rivals and state control of the press.

Although there are privately owned newspapers, mainly in Harare, the key dailies and most radio and TV channels are owned by the government and are heavy with ruling-party propaganda.

Diplomats who attended the launch of the latest U.N. aid plea in Harare were not optimistic. Donor countries have given billions of dollars to Zimbabwe since independence in 1980, but there is little to show for their investments.

Opposition leaders say the protest Friday in Harare won’t be the last in a bid to force changes from the government.

“Every Zimbabwean will be marching to end this suffering until we achieve a legitimate people’s government that will begin to address the serious challenges facing the country,” MDC spokesman Daniel Molokele told a Harare press conference Wednesday. He said protests in other cities also are planned.

“Until that is achieved, we will not rest and we will continue to exercise our democratic right to demonstrate peacefully,” he said.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/aug/14/zimbabwe-president-emmerson-mnangagwa-fails-revers/
 
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Zimbabwe doctors strike over poor wages and working conditions
by Chris Muronzi | 05 Sept 2019​

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Harare, Zimbabwe - At least half of the doctors working for Zimbabwe's two leading hospitals have not reported for duty for the third straight day, as medical practitioners embarked on a strike to press for higher wages after high inflation eroded incomes in the troubled southern African country.

On Thursday, only students and some junior doctors could be seen moving around the wards at Harare Central Hospital, the country's biggest referral hospital, and Parirenyatwa Hospital.

A union representing doctors, the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors' Association (ZHDA), called for the strike on Tuesday after failing to reach an agreement on a salary rise with the government.

Doctors have already rejected a government offer of a 60 percent salary rise, which they find a pittance.

A junior doctor currently earns about 400 Zimbabwean dollars ($33) as basic salary and an "on-call allowance" of approximately 1,000 Zimbabwean dollars ($83) a month.

Patients have faced a harrowing time amid the strike. A patient at Parirenyatwa, Diton Friday, who lost three fingers in a work accident early on Tuesday morning, was yet to see an orthopaedist at the hospital till 10:20am.

He was bandaged and given painkillers. Friday said he came in at 2am and was only attended to at 4am. At 8am, he had an X-ray taken by a radiologist.

"We are still waiting for the orthopaedic to come. We are not sure what's going on," he told Al Jazeera.

A doctor at Parirenyatwa who spoke on condition of anonymity said half of the junior doctors at the hospital did not turn up for work on Tuesday.

"The patients are really feeling the pinch of this as things tend to move slowly on the floor."

Junior doctors work under the supervision of senior doctors and are mostly responsible for the day-to-day medical requirements of patients.

A doctor at Parirenyatwa on Wednesday said things had been "hectic" for casualties.

"Major disciplines such as orthopaedic, neurologist, and general surgeons are not here. Junior doctors are key in the service delivery as they are the first port of call at hospitals," the doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

"Junior doctors are supposed to have accommodation at the hospital or close to the hospital. They don't have accommodation at the hospital. A flat close to the hospital costs $100-200 and our salaries are nowhere near this."

At Harare Central Hospital, it was the same story.

Although the hospital was open, by 12:30pm, patients had not been attended.

"I got here at 7am and we have not been served yet. We have just been in the queue and it's not moving. We have not seen a doctor. A doctor came and said they are on strike and will attend to serious cases only," a patient, Freddy Mukuru, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday afternoon.

Mukuru, who developed back complications, was mulling his next move.

Another doctor at the hospital, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said their demands for higher wages are real. "We really want to earn more money," the doctor said.

Developing situation

Harare Central Hospital clinical director Dr Christopher Pasi said it was too early to assess the effect of the strike.

"The doctors came in and did their rounds. It's very rare that they [junior doctors] all move out at once. If someone doesn't pitch in at nine and comes in at 12pm with an excuse or something like that, it's difficult to say they have not come for sure," Pasi told Al Jazeera.

"We are not at a stage where we say we are overwhelmed because people didn't come to work. We are still managing. The teams will be there during the day. At night that is when we will really know and assess the full impact," he said.

Downplaying the severity of the strike, the clinical director said it is still a "developing situation".

A nurse at the hospital, however, said senior doctors had also joined the strike, adding the situation was getting dire.

"Senior doctors are also not working. Some junior doctors are working and attending to emergency cases only. At night, there were no doctors on call," she said.

ZHDA acting president Peter Mugombeyi last week formally notified heads of government hospitals of the planned strike in a letter saying doctors "simply do not have the means to continue coming to work because the salary is not sufficient".

"Attempts to engage the employer have proved to be futile. No satisfactory agreement has been reached so far to insulate the doctors from the current high cost of living," he said.
https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/...wages-working-conditions-190904102437057.html
 
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And I'm sure they think you're a dumbass too. Just because you look down on them, doesn't mean they are lesser people.

I don’t look down on them. I can say someone isn’t that smart without thinking them lesser. That’s your narrative.
 
You'd have a point if the Zimbabwean government was even remotely competent.

Establishing a farm isn’t easy. Running an established farm is not difficult.
I have no idea why they couldn’t figure it out in Zimbabwe. I don’t have enough knowledge on the entire situation, it is perplexing.
 
Establishing a farm isn’t easy. Running an established farm is not difficult.
I have no idea why they couldn’t figure it out in Zimbabwe. I don’t have enough knowledge on the entire situation, it is perplexing.
It's called chasing off the farmers and their skilled associates to be replaced tobe replaced by members of the political who can barely do their jobs. A clusterfuck that the IOC could not airdrop enough rubbers for.
 
Establishing a farm isn’t easy. Running an established farm is not difficult.
I have no idea why they couldn’t figure it out in Zimbabwe. I don’t have enough knowledge on the entire situation, it is perplexing.

The knowledge on the situation you seek was posted on page 3:

https://forums.sherdog.com/posts/154865537/

That recap should be able to clear up any remaining confusions, I think.
 
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They are fools to go back, as soon as it's politically convenient for these assholes to steal their shit again they will do it without a thought. It's a sad thing to say but unfortunately in life, some people only learn the hard way.
 
Zambia is reaping the benefits of Zimbabwean farmers hounded off their land at the height of violent evictions against white land owners .

While Zimbabwe will need to import grain this season, Zambia's fortunes have been reversed.



 
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Zimbabwe ready for take off, says President Mnangagwa
Sep 6, 2019

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PRESIDENT Mnangagwa has implored foreign investors to consider Zimbabwe, saying the country was now ready for take-off following nearly two decades of isolation. Zimbabwe has been reeling under sanctions imposed by Western powers after the Land Reform Programme which sought to correct colonial land imbalances.

Delivering a speech during an oversubscribed dinner with businesspeople on Wednesday at the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa in Cape Town, the President said the Land Reform Programme had been successfully completed and the country was now in transition.

“Allow me to preface my statement with a declaration that Zimbabwe is in transition,” he said.

“We have been in isolation for close to two decades due to illegal economic sanctions that were imposed following (the) process to reclaim our land through the Land Reform Programme.”

President Mnangagwa said the country’s Constitution required the Government to pay compensation for improvements on land repossessed from white former commercial farmers, and that his administration will comply.

However, he pointed out that following the completion of the Land Reform Programme and economic challenges that characterised the past two decades, focus was now on rebuilding the economy under the “Zimbabwe is Open for Business” policy.

President Mnangagwa said in line with the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) 2018-2020), Government recognised the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) and private sector investors.

“The key tenets of our development agenda include comprehensive economic reforms, which improve the ease and cost of doing business, fosters an investment friendly environment, promotes and protects enterprises, creates employment, eradicates corruption and enhances accountability, transparency and good governance,” he said.

The President said the reforms were being undertaken with an eye on making sure the country attains Vision 2030 of becoming an upper middle income economy where citizens get at least US$3 500 per month.

“Private sector investment will play a major role in the attainment of this noble vision. My administration has liberalised investment conditions and removed restrictions on shareholding across all sectors of the economy,” he said.

To that end, Government has repealed the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act, which limited foreign shareholding to 49 percent, with the balance reserved for indigenous blacks.

The President stressed that all Bilateral Investment Protection and Promotion Agreements (Bippas) will be respected.

“I want to assure you all that my administration is unwavering in its commitment to safe, open, predictable and transparent investment and business environment,” he said.

Government continued to strengthen institutions that are charged with fighting corruption, with the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zacc) having been fully reconstituted and capacitated.

Efforts were also underway to address issues around the ease of doing business by reforming regulatory frameworks and eliminating bureaucratic bottlenecks.

President Mnangagwa said a one-stop-shop had been established through the formation of the Zimbabwe Investment Development Authority (ZIDA).

“Legislative reforms are also ongoing to realign all our laws with the global best practices,” he said.

The President said agriculture was the mainstay of the economy and Government seeks to fully utilise the resource.

He further indicated that mining sector, which has over 60 minerals including rare-earth minerals, was yet another area that investors should consider.

Other opportunities that investors could explore are in the tourism and manufacturing sectors, adding they offer incredible returns.

“In line with the SADC industrialisation agenda and prospects brought by the operationalisation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), investors are welcome to Zimbabwe to set up value addition and beneficiation industries, leveraging on a wide array of raw materials and highly skilled human capital base in our country,” said President Mnangagwa.

He said investment opportunities were still abound in Zimbabwe’s infrastructure sector, particularly energy, modernisation and upgrading of transport systems.

https://www.herald.co.zw/zim-ready-for-take-off-says-president/
 
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Zimbabwe Establishes Monetary Policy Committee in Stability Bid
By Ray Ndlovu and Antony Sguazzin | September 10, 2019

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Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube
Zimbabwe’s Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube has established a monetary policy committee in his latest attempt to stabilize an economy in free fall.

The former economics professor, appointed last year to get the economy out of a two-decade rut, named a nine-member committee consisting of academics, bankers and the governor and two deputy governors of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

The committee, first mooted in March, is a step toward to the country setting a benchmark interest rate and introducing inflation targeting as the country’s newly introduced currency plunges and its consumer price index heads toward hyperinflation.

Ncube reintroduced the Zimbabwe dollar, which the country had abandoned in 2009, and banned the use of foreign currency in June. The unit, a precursor of which was tied to the U.S. dollar at parity in February, is now trading at 11.6 to the dollar.

While Ncube has suspended the release of annual inflation statistics until February, economists estimate that the rate is between 230% and 570%. The country’s 400,000 civil servants are demanding increased pay after the devaluation decimated their spending power.

The MPC members include Kumbirai Katsande, a former managing director of Nestle SA‘s Zimbabwean unit, and Douglas Munatsi, the founder and former chief executive officer of the bank ABC Holdings Ltd. Also included are Eddie Cross, a former opposition politician, and Ashok Chakravarti, an economics professor at the University of Zimbabwe.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...es-monetary-policy-committee-in-stability-bid
 
If I was one of those white farmers that has been recently offered a small compensation and land leases I'd be thinking, what happens in 5 years? 10 years?

Next charasmatic asshole who gets on the radio there will have the natives attacking the whites again.

Rinse and repeat.
 
Establishing a farm isn’t easy. Running an established farm is not difficult.
I have no idea why they couldn’t figure it out in Zimbabwe. I don’t have enough knowledge on the entire situation, it is perplexing.

Well, they just didn't just chase out the white farmers, they chased off all their black workers too. They then turned the farms over to Mugabe political lackeys and their families who didn't have a clue how to run farms and really didn't care to. Since they were already filthy rich by Zimbabwe/Africa standards. It was more the principle of chasing out the white farmers and turning them over to black people more than anything else.

So the land was left to rot.

Then down the road, they realize they can't live off what they stole forever and they lost all the revenue that came from the farms, so they try to get back the farmers they targeted. Who would have to be crazy to come back. The very few who did apparently don't live there full-time.
 
Get whitey out!
Boy what a counter productive move that was. Fact is, skilled, intelligent and motivated people are needed to farm. Something Zimbabwe clearly lacks.
 
Get whitey out!
Boy what a counter productive move that was. Fact is, skilled, intelligent and motivated people are needed to farm. Something Zimbabwe clearly lacks.
Every attempt of Africans fighting for self-determination has ended in disaster. Look at Haiti, should have let Whitey stay. Look at their neighbor: Dominican Republic: more whitey's influence = better life
 
Zimbabwe's farmers look back at 'hell' under Mugabe
By AFP | September 12, 2019

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At its zenith, the Mount Carmel farm in northern Zimbabwe boasted 500 livestock and shipped its mangoes and lemons to Europe, a continent away.

In 2009, that halcyon time ended abruptly when the farm was seized by thugs operating in the name of Robert Mugabe's land reform.

Ten years later, Mount Carmel has just 15 cows and an overgrown orchard.

"This wonderful land is untapped," said its former owner, Ben Freeth.

He is among the thousands of white farmers violently evicted by Mugabe's land reform policy, which almost at a stroke turned Zimbabwe from a bread basket into a basket case.

Zimbabwe's founding president died during a medical trip to Singapore last week, aged 95.

He was toppled by his former military allies in 2017, ending a 37-year rule marked by political repression and economic mismanagement, and leaving a nation torn over his legacy.

"Before we had an orchard, now it's a forest," said Sinos Mlauzi, a black Zimbabwean who used to work for Freeth.

"When I heard Mugabe died, I was overjoyed," he said, lifting his cap to show scars left from 2009. "He took away our means of subsistence."

Mount Carmal's 1,200 hectares (3,000 acres) lie in the bush, near the northern town of Chegutu.

Two dismembered tractors lie in a shed, while a pickup truck outside is riddled with bullet holes.

Brick ruins and an empty swimming pool are all that remains of the Freeths' luxurious farmhouse, which was torched.

Freeth, 50, recalls the six months of "hell" he and his family suffered as mobs repeatedly attacked his property.

"(Mugabe's followers) kicked down the front door and dragged blazing tires inside," said Freeth, sitting in the lush gardens of the house he now occupies in Zimbabwe's capital Harare.

"They were banging on oil drums outside the house. They were threatening my children."

Agricultural disaster

Freeth's employees were beaten with steel rods and his parents-in-law were seriously injured.

The violence culminated on August 30, 2009, when the Freeths returned from church to find their house was in flames.

Mugabe's land reform was launched in 2000 to re-distribute land awarded to whites during British colonial rule, which ended with Mugabe's election in 1980.

Twenty years ago, 18 percent of the best land belonged to white Zimbabweans, which represented less than one percent of the population.

But the brutal eviction of white farmers, and their replacement by people who often had negligible skills, capital or experience in agriculture, caused a collapse in output, and with it Zimbabwe's economy.

"We have the best climate in the world and we are no longer capable to feed our population," said Freeth.

One third of Zimbabweans are dependent on food aid, according to the United Nations.

Hundreds of farms were placed in the hands of Mugabe's allies and of underqualified, poorly-equiped farmers.

Mount Carmel was awarded to Zimbabwean nationalist and ruling party ZANU-PF supporter Nathan Shamuyarira.

The workforce of 150 employees shrank to less than a tenth of its size, said Mount Carmel's newly-appointed manager, Simon Shema.

"Us blacks, we had no land to cultivate. Mugabe gave us the opportunity to farm," Shema told AFP.

He said he would be heading to Harare for Mugabe's funeral on Saturday to "thank him".

Surrounded by broken-down machinery, Shema was convinced the farm would be running within the next two months.

Paprika, peas and corn would be planted. And the mangoes on the trees -- yellowed from the lack of irrigation -- would be exported.

"We will start small, and grow," said Shema.

'Stole their education'

Although ZANU-PF acknowledged some of the failures of Mugabe's land reform, it said the benefits were still to come.

"Around 30 percent of the seized lands are not being used," said Tatenda Gwinji, a ZANU-PF representative in Chegutu. "We are heading in the right direction."

Freeth's former workers have been unemployed for the past decade.

"We had a good life. Now we have nothing, not even food to eat," Peter Assan, 62, told AFP.

"Once the white farmer had left, my children had to stop going to school because we had no money to pay for their fees," he said. "Mugabe stole their education."

"The (land) reform did not accomplish the desired objective," said Mlauzi. "And Mugabe caused productive farmers to flee."

Of the 4,200 white farmers counted in Zimbabwe's last population census in 2000, only 400 work land in Zimbabwe, according to Freeth.

Hopes raised by the change in regime were rapidly quashed.

Mugabe's successor President Emmerson Mnangagwa pledged to revive the economy, but "prices are soaring and our lives are even more difficult," said Mlauzi.

Mugabe's death was a "non-event", said Freeth. "His legacy is still alive. A legacy of injustice, of absolute power and violence."

Behind him, a cross pays tribute to Freeth's father-in-law, buried in a farm he can no longer access.

https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/africa/2019-09-12-zimbabwes-farmers-look-back-at-hell-under-mugabe/
 
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