Neighboring farms were occupied. Farmers who resisted were attacked. A number of them were murdered. The Buckles appealed to the government to help them stop the illegal occupation of their land. Nothing was done. No police were sent, though more war vets showed up and demanded that the Buckles loan them their farm truck so that they could go to political rallies to denounce white farmers.
At last, the leader of a drunken gang showed up and chanted, ‘This is my fields! This is my cows! This is my grass! This is my farm!’ He ordered Mrs Buckle to leave her house. ‘This is my house!’ Still, the Buckles resisted his intimidation. But soon after, the defiant group of war vets started a grass fire on the property, and when it overwhelmed the farm and threatened the house, the Buckles’ will was broken. A malevolent man appeared from the smoke and said fiercely, ‘Siya’ — Leave. And so, six months after the first threat the Buckles departed, fearing for their lives, losing everything.
In his introduction to African Tears, Trevor Ncube, editor in chief of the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper, described the story as ‘one family’s struggle against state-sponsored terror.’
All this news was fairly fresh. Less than a year after the Buckles were forced off their farm I had passed near it, outside Marondera.
And then I was in Harare, on my walking tour. On a side street, in a shop that sold African artifacts, I was examining some objects that looked old — that is, used by a practitioner. Any carving that had acquired a distinct patina or was worn smooth by years of handling or had the smoke-smell of use attracted me. Cooking implements — bowls, spoons, stirrers — interested me, and so did wooden tools — clubs, hatchets, digging sticks, stools. I happened to be holding a carved wooden slingshot. Turned upside down it was a figure with a head and wide-apart legs.
‘What’s the story with this?’ I asked the woman at the counter. ‘Is this old?’
She said, ‘See how it’s blackened? It’s been scorched in a fire to harden the wood. It’s Chokwe, I think.’ She thought a moment and added, ‘But I go on the assumption that nothing is old.’
That wise and honest statement from a dealer in artifacts made me trust her. She was a woman of about sixty, white haired, plain spoken, African-born of English parents. Her son was a farmer, and of course worried about his fate, but he had not been invaded. We talked some more. I said I wanted to meet a farmer whose land had been invaded.
‘I know one. He’s rather outspoken. He might talk to you. He’s got a mobile phone in his truck.’
She picked up the phone and made a call to him, explaining my request in a few sentences. Then she listened closely, thanked him, and hung up.
‘He’s rather busy but he’ll be at this coffee shop later this morning.’ She wrote the name of the coffee shop on a piece of paper. ‘He said you’re welcome to join him.’
That was how I met Peter Drummond, a tall white-haired man in his mid-fifties, his weather-beaten face softened by his blue ironic eyes. He had been aged by military service and farm work and the political harassment, which was a condition of being a white farmer in Zimbabwe. He was gentle, but very tough, and full of plans. He had a habit of prefacing a remark by saying, ‘This is a very funny story,’ and then relating something horrific, involving machine guns and blood. ‘Very funny’ usually meant a narrow escape.
He owned a 7000-acre farm outside the town of Norton, which was about fifty miles west of Harare. He grew maize for seed, grew vegetables, raised cattle and pigs, and had a dairy; two of his sons helped him. Peter himself ran the chicken operation. Every week he imported 23,000 day-old chicks from the United States, and these he reared for local consumption, slaughtering them, freezing some, selling others fresh. He trucked 4300 dressed birds, some fresh, some frozen, into Harare every day, and supplied markets, shops, hotels and restaurants. Like many other big farmers he was helping to feed Zimbabwe, but he was not finding it easy.
What concerned Drummond was the war veterans trespassing on his land, the disruption, their violent threats, their drunkenness, their cutting down his trees, killing his animals, frightening his family. And the shortage of diesel fuel meant that he could not operate many of his tractors. This season, a great deal of his land had gone unplowed and unplanted. Weeds grew where there should have been crops.
‘The funny thing is that I was on Japanese TV talking about the situation,’ he said. ‘I was pretty frank. The afternoon of the day it aired I got a death threat.’
‘Verbal or in writing?’
‘Phone rang. African voice. “You’ve been pushing the MDC” ’ — the opposition Movement for Democratic Change — ‘ “We’re going to kill you.” ’
The Movement for Democratic Change and its party leader Morgan Tsvangirai criticized the government for its policy of sanctioning the ilegal farm invasions and turning a blind eye to the violence. The government ruling party reacted by accusing the MDC of being in cahoots with the white farmers and refused to allow them to use rural sports stadiums for political rallies. The reporting of any criticisms was suppressed.
‘So I made a tape of all the news that was appearing on the BBC, Sky News, South African News, and CNN,’ Drummond said. ‘I had about twenty minutes of it, showing what the foreign correspondents were saying about Zimbabwe. And I played the tape to my workers — I’ve got about two hundred of them. I said, “You look at this. It’s what the foreign press is saying. I’m not saying a word. If I get involved I might get killed.” ’
He had bought his first farm in 1975, during the struggle. ‘I didn’t have much money, but lots of farmers were being killed, so farms were cheap. I bought a 3000-acre farm on the never-never.’ He worked the land and assumed he would be there for some time. ‘But we were attacked in 1979 by a group of fifteen men. It’s quite a funny story.’
It was a terrifying story. He was woken by the sound of gunfire, thirty shots, an entire magazine of an AK-47 fired into his cook’s house. ‘Missed him! Providential, I say!’ He had an AK himself. He crept out of the house, which was surrounded by a barrier wall. ‘That was to protect us from rockets. They were using Russian RP-7 rockets, which explode after they penetrate a wall. That way they would explode after the first wall and leave the house intact.’ He took a brick out of the barrier wall and emptied a magazine at the intruders. ‘Two of my men started shooting. Everyone was shooting.’ The fifteen attackers fled. And when the Farmers’ Reserve Rescue Team hurried to help they found an arms cache on his property — weapons, explosives and landmines — enough for the all-out assault that was thwarted.
‘Like I say, this is quite a funny story,’ he repeated. ‘My boys were five, four and one. My wife went to wake them up. My son Garth said, “What’s all the noise?” “It’s nothing,” my wife says. Garth turns over and says, “Dad will shoot them.” He was so calm, we were all calm.’
He sold that farm and bought another, sharing pastures with a friend on a large piece of adjacent land. These two farms were sold to the government for resettlement.
‘We had reassurances from the government that when we bought again there would be no more resettlement issues — no invasions.’
With the proceeds of the sale he bought the land he presently farmed, the 7000-acre Hunyani Estate. He planted trees, he built a house to live in and a machine shop and the chicken operation. He plowed, he introduced cattle, and in one section some wild game — eland and impala. All this investment meant he had to borrow heavily. He was paying off a housing loan as well as a half-a-million-dollar overdraft at the bank.