New invasions leave 66,000 farmworkers homeless in Zimbabwe (Roundup)

Sep 25, 2009, 13:13 GMT

Harare/Johannesburg - Over 66,000 farmworkers in Zimbabwe have been made homeless since February and are fighting for survival following a new spate of invasions of white-owned farms, a farm union said Friday.

The report by the General Agriculture and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ) claimed the farm's new owners had hired the police to force farmworkers and their families off the land.

Most of the workers were living rough, by the roadside or in the mountains where they had set up squatter camps, GAPWUZ said in a report entitled Fresh Invasions and Challenges Faced by Farmworkers in Zimbabwe that it presented to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai this week.

The report expressed concerns for the health of the labourers, most of whom come from neighbouring Mozambique, Malawi and Zambia, saying they were forced to walk long distances to find water and that they were drinking from rivers contaminated with animal fecal matter.

GAPWUZ said the workers had been laid off by the new farmers - mostly military officials and/or members of President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party - because they were seen as loyal to their previous white bosses and because the new farmers were not engaged in productive farming.

'Farmworkers have been turned into nomads,' the report said.

The labourers, some of whom had been beaten by police, had no access to medical assistance in the squatter camps, which were regularly raided by the authorities, the report said.

Last year, GAPWUZ estimated that 350,000 black farmworkers had been displaced by the redistribution of farms to new black farmers since 2000.

In recent weeks, evictions have been taking place 'almost daily,' the group said in a claim that tallies with reports from the around 400 white farmers left on the land, who have reported an increase in farm invasions in recent weeks.

Several foreign newspapers reported over the past week that the Land Ministry, which is controlled by Zanu-PF, had recommended to cabinet that all remaining white farmers be expropriated.

The new farmers have been given 'offer letters' from the government, which they say entitles them to the land.

Mugabe defended his brand of land reform again on Thursday, telling CNN in New York it was the 'best thing could have ever have happened to an African country.'

An official from Tsvangirai's office, Abisha Nyanguwo, said a government team would 'be on the ground from next week to get to the root of the problem.'