Forwarded from my sister. The story is par for the course. Some farmers are now saying you've got to let us stay as we only own the one farm. We'll see what Mugabe and his thugs do about that...

(last names and some details redacted)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter " @.com>
To:
Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2002 8:55 AM
Subject: Zimbabwe

Hi all,

For those of you who are interested...

My folks are hanging in there. Not going to budge until the last minute. They have been barricaded in their house for the past two days with the braying drunken mobs outside demanding money. Mugabe has told all the farm workers to take as much as they can get before the whites depart - so my parents had to pay them gratuities (up to $20 million for my brother and somewhere around $1 million for my parents skeleton staff) despite having supported them all for the past year without any of them doing a single days
work.
Quite disappointing when your own staff turn on you.

My parents have nurtured most of them since childhood, but I guess they have no-where to go and feel trapped. (Don't we all).

Well Africa can go to hell. Mugabe has done enormous damage to the sub-continent.

Humour still abounds. All the farmers from Chinhoyi who were thrown into jail earlier this year for trying to protect a fellow farmer marched up to the local prison last week with mops and brooms demanding to clean the place
in case they were thrown inside again! Even the cops saw the funny side.

My brother appears to be okay. He is allowed to farm, but no garauntee that he will see the crop to fruition. The general feeling is that those that will be allowed to stay will obviously do it under Mugabes terms - such a 200% rise in wages thus rendering the industry unprofitable. However, for the majority of old timers such as my folks, who have no pensions, this can only be the best option. Who knows.

Unfortunately the extortion does not stop once you have vacated your property. Many people are being followed into Harare and barricaded in their flats by the war veterans and ex-farm workers who are demanding ludicrous
amounts of money despite having already been paid out in full. Rather depressing to think that you are still not over it even though you have given up everything. Even more crazy to think that you have to "pay" to leave your property!

That's it for now.

Cheers, Pete .


Peter
Senior Account Executive
xxx
xxx
Wanchai
Hong Kong
Tel: 852-
Fax: 852-