Not everyone in Trelawney appreciates his attitude, arguing he is forcing them to improve working conditions.Dinosaur racism lives on. “But Mickey Mouse money [the falling Zimbabwe dollar] means Mickey Mouse government.”It will be nothing short of criminal if a Mugabe crony is soon taking in the view from Mr Evans’ front porch.. But the farmers can justifiably point to farms previously acquired by government which now lie derelict or have become holiday homes for ministers.One of the few black commercial farmers to have broken into Trelawney’s once all-white club agrees land redistribution, as proposed, will be a disaster.The farmer, who prefers to remain anonymous, was involved in previous programmes to resettle peasants on commercial land. In magnificent farm houses, with manicured lawns, tennis courts and swimming pools, whites still live like kings served by silent armies of deferential blacks The racial divide is strictly observed. White conversation is casually and intensely racist; and there is no shame.Mr Evans, the local farm union representative, is part of a younger, more enlightened generation. He has built a school, a clinic and three- bedroomed pre-fab houses for 150 workers and their families.He lives in considerable style and makes no apologies but says his workers must share in the prosperity.
The majority of Zimbabwean businesses depend on the agricultural sector. Months of uncertainty have already halted farm investment; the whole economy is suffering.At Trelawney’s farm machinery workshop, Felicity Pentland-Smith, farmer’s wife and grand-daughter of Winston Field, a former Rhodesian prime minister, accuses the government of inciting racial hatred.Thousands of workers recently stoned farmhouses and beat up farmers during their first strike over wages. Mrs Pentland-Smith was trapped in the shop by a mob of 200.”Mugabe constantly talks about indigenous people,” she says “I am a Zimbabwean We have invested everything we have in this country. If we leave we leave with nothing.”Her neighbours are also bitter at being targeted after years of “reconciliation” rhetoric. At another farm, the owner of inherited land, also listed, cannot sleep for worry. “We will trash this place before we leave,” says his wife.But while the farmers are undoubtedly whipping boys, ingrained white racism – particularly among the older generation – only strengthens the president’s hand.In Trelawney the old colonial ways are preserved. The strike, a week after 50 ministers were each issued with a Mercedes Benz and a Jeep, unleashed an outpouring of anti government sentiment.The state’s response was brutal.
In Harare the police attacked demonstrators with tear gas and sjamboks. The following day, trade union leader Morgan Tsvangirai was found unconscious and savagely beaten on the floor of his blood-splattered office.With few cards left to play, President Mugabe has returned to two old favourites; racial division and the land issue – most of Zimbabwe’s commercial farmland is still owned by white farmers. The government is trying to create a smokescreen for political failure and hopes veterans can be bought off with land.Farmers are now scapegoats in a political gamble which threatens the entire economy. They are Zimbabwe’s highest earners of foreign currency and employ hundreds of thousands of people. There are enormous opportunities for action in the French sector And yet we are faced with total inertia. The only conclusion one can draw is that it is deliberate policy.”The obstructive French attitude to the war crimes tribunals – which France voted in the UN to set up – has been apparent for months but never officially admitted until last week. The defence minister, Alain Richard, then made a swingeing attack on the “theatrical justice” of the tribunals.
A British aid worker based in Tibet is being forced to leave because the Chinese authorities refuse to renew her work visa. Chinese officials give no reason for the de facto expulsion of one of the few foreign aid experts in this sensitive region. Teresa Poole says Peking’s fear of Westerners on the roof of the world raises big questions over a highly controversial European Union aid project. For five months, exasperated Save the Children Fund UK (SCF) officials have been trying to work out what has gone wrong. Their only expatriate on the ground in Tibet, a 30-year-old education advisor, has been working there for three years improving village education. In July she went on holiday, but when SCF tried to renew her permit to return to Lhasa, China said no.
Since then, she has spent most of the time waiting in Nepal hoping that China would relent But to no avail.
