02:40:

(Robert Mugabe 1980:)  Our new nation requires everyone of us to be a new man. If yesterday I fought you as an enemy, today you have become a friend and ally.

(Robert Mugabe 2000: Our present state of mind is that you are now our enemies.

(1980) It could never be a correct justification that because the whites oppressed us yesterday, when they had power, the blacks must oppress them today because they have power. An evil remains an evil.

(2000) You really have behaved as enemies of Zimbabwe, that that we are full of anger.

(1980) Our majority rule could easily turn into inhuman rule if we oppressed, persecuted or harassed those who do not look or think like the majority of us.

TITLE: SCORCHED EARTH

Flame destruction

war vets

MDC funeral in the rural areas.

03:50

SCRIPT: Zimbabwe 2000. The economy is collapsing. More than 75% of Zimbabweans live below the breadline and the unemployment queue grows daily. The divide between the haves and the have nots is deepening.  And now across the country, groups of war veterans and ZANU-PF youth have invaded white-owned commercial farms.

Some invasions have been peaceful.  But in others farm workers have been killed and beaten.  And of brutal intimidation. In particular, the invaders have sought out, for attack, members of the fledgling opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change. 

04:41

Almost twenty people - both black and white Zimbabweans -  have died in the violence. Many are grieving.   In the safety of the Harare suburbs, four friends are having a braai. Like many young professionals they talk about  politics, the people and Mugabe.

05:13

Every time the president speaks on TV I switch to the other channel.  The only option available.

He wants to play games with the Zimbabweans.  They are lying to them.

05:31:

(Robson:) ...he does not have any fresh ideas, he is still living in the 70's, you know things have changed.

(Bright:) You know they talk about the glories of the liberation war, and nothing else, they think they have done something so wonderful.

(Lawrence:) That man has actually become a criminal in the land that he helped to liberate, he has done so many things in the wrong way. What I know now is that there is a very educated generation which does not what to look back at what happened in the 70's about how we won the war, we know we won the war.

06:03:

(Heroes Acre pictures:) Twenty years have passed since liberation. For some Zimbabweans the glory of those days is fading in the face of  70% inflation,  corruption and petrol queues. For the first time Mugabe does have strong opposition.

(Bright:) But any one who goes to work, rents a place and buys from the shops we no longer support ZANU_PF.

How do you know that?

People say that on the streets.  There are very few people who want ZANU PF.

This regime has manipulated the law enforcement agencies of this country, there is nothing you can do.

SCRIPT: Even before the election dates were announced, ZANU-PF had mobilised. The people who fought the liberation war, the war veterans came  onto the streets. Their opponent is the MDC, a new party which is  actively campaigning against Mugabe.

07:07

Morgan Tsvangirai

President of the Movement For Democratic Change

cut the T-shirt a bit

We are being accused of perpertrating violence and yet we are the victims of violence.

Script: Mugabe supporters and the war vets say they are the MDC's target. But innocent people get caught in the crossfire as the parties jostle for support.  Over Easter, on his way home from shopping, Christopher says he was attacked by a busload of ZANU-PF supporters. They accused him of being a member of the MDC. They beat him. Stabbed him. And left him for dead in a ditch.

07:40

They wanted to kill me.  They said kill him.

They said kill him?

07:47

Bright:  I used to think that we were one of the most sobre and gentle of people you know, even in 1980 when the whites came they said the Shona people where the most gentle of people and I never thought there would be a civil war here, and I hope it never gets to that.

Robson: There will never be civil war here, it is pretty much civil unrest.

SCRIPT: The violence began three months ago, shortly after a constitutional referendum.  In February, advertisements like this urged Zimbabweans to vote for a new constitution. It would give President Mugabe a new term in office - and the right to appropriate land without compensation.

08:32:

SCRIPT: The people rejected the constitution, and the War Veterans gathered under the leadership of Dr Chenjerai Hitler Hunvi. These war veterans are paid a monthly stipend by the government.

08:42

ZANU PF.  With immediate effect - if we hear any journalist reporting that we are squatters as war veterans that will be war here.  We must - hey this is serious.

09:08:

Lawrence They are just being used, they don't have an idea of their own. They don't. They are being told what to do.  Its not like the war veterans all of the sudden decided that they should invade the farms, no, it is just a political game that the ruling party is playing, there was no Hunvi in the 1990, there was no Hunvi, its just something that the ruling party thought of doing to sway, so people do not see the economic problem e are in, I don't think the war veterans have an opinion, they are just being told what to do.

They are just being used.

09:30:

Robson: They are the jobless people who have nothing to do , no source of income, nothing, desperate people.

Bright:  But I don't think they are going to get away with it, you just can't go and take the stands in a tobacco field where there are no toilet facilties no water its just not practical, they say they are not disturbing winter planting of tobacco.

10:11:

SCRIPT: Just outside Harare, people - some of them War Vets - arrive in buses. They plan to peg out the wheatfields of a farm, abandoned by the farmer when the first invaders arrived. One of them is Joyce Choto. She's pegged out a stand for a residential house for her family. She still intends to get a farm for planting crops.

ME: Where do you want to get a farm from?

CHOTA: Anywhere, any farm. Wherever I hear of an empty farm, I'm ready to go and take it.

10:48:

SCRIPT: Mrs Choto says she's unemployed. She's a war veteran and a senior ZANU-PF official. In her time she's travelled abroad, representing the party. She now heads the provincial women's league.

11:04:

CHOTA: We want the land because we have to live somewhere. The place where we were made to stay by those who took our land in 1890 is a dustbowl. There is nothing there and there are many of us.  We have nowhere to grow our crops, our children have nowhere to live, all the farms are filled with whites only.  One white should not have several farms while many blacks live in one tiny place. We have realised that we can't go on like this.

SCRIPT: Margaret Dongo confronts Joyce Choto. Once they were both war veterans and sat on ZANU-PF's powerful central committee. But Ms Dongo defected. Now she heads her own political party... putting her in direct opposition to her old comrade-in arms. She criticises the landgrab and says ZANU-PF is preying on the landless to get support for the elections. She says the elections may not be free and fair. 

Ms Margaret Donga, President Zimbabwe Union of Democrats.

They have said they have made people from my party to surrender their membership cards in order for them to get the piece of land.

12:18:

One of Ms Donga's supporters is Rudo Tenenga. She sold her goat to travel to Harare from the mines of Murewa. She says people are hiding in the mountains after they were beaten by ZANU-PF for belonging to an opposition party. She and her pregnant daughter were beaten by 15 men. Their money was stolen by the attackers.

Ms Donga:  they say what they do to you they will tie you first with a red cloth and then beat you up so that you are not able to identify who has beaten you up.

Rudo Tenenga, Zimbabwe Women Miners' Trust

member of an opposition party

Rudo: "They say the President has sanctioned this because he only wants one party."

13:02:

(SCRIPT)The issue of land has become a vexed one as violence and argument undermine rational debate. The white farming community is mostly closed and racially exclusive. The farmers are masters in a feudal partnership with the workers. This makes them an easy target - along with the labourers. They're also seen as supporting the MDC.  War veterans have invaded over a thousand farms.  The farmers are retreating to the towns. At this operation room at the headquarters of the Commercial Farmers' Union in Harare, they come to report the violence and the looting. GerrIE Terreblanche has come to ask whether he should plant wheat or not.

13:49:

FARMER

I mean when there are 300 - 400 people coming to your doorstep and you know how they have assaultedthe hell out of your labour you know what they want. what the picture Is.

14:00:

Four farmers have been murdered so far, others beaten. A farmer spoke to us. But he's too frightened to give his name.  He was roughed up by invading war veterans recently and taken by them from his farm to a base.  

Farmer: I understood that they said in Shona to the rest, We have caught the main MDC guy, which made me even more terrified. Half a dozen guys then came up to me and I  thought that I was going to get beaten to death.  I was kept at this base for most of the day.  I was questioned all of the time.  I was not allowed to sit down.

Can you just explain that a little more.  What were they trying to make you to do.

 They were dancing and singing and they said come on join in.  I had no option, I had to join in for my own safety.  I danced with them.  They then started singing songs in Shona which I didn't understand.  The started saying Pambele with Mugabe, pambele with ZANU PF and down with Morgan Tsvangirai and down with Sabanda and down with NDC.

15:22:

SCRIPT: The war veterans let him go, he says, after he had impressed them with his dancing. He drove off, and then pulled to the side of the road. 

Farmer: It was a very weird sensation, I guess you could call it shock, I just broke down, I just cried, it was part relief I guess that I was alive and astonishment and relief that I did not have to be on my guard on the whole time.

15:59:

The farmer recently offered his farm to the government for sale. But it was  rejected with a "Certificate of No Present Interest". Such certificates were issued until as late as last year.

ROBSON: Actually everybody knows that Britain donated money for you know land reform programe but that money was looted and it was used to acquire farms and those farms were not given to the landless but they were given to the politicians you, the big guns in the ZANU-PF and that is why people were angry because they were supposed to be given to the landless.

16:42:

The government has not denied that farms have been handed out to senior ZANU-PF members. These farms have not been invaded despite the land hunger.

According to available statistics, this is how Zimbabwe is owned,. Just over 40% of the land is held by the state as communal land.  Since 1980, just over 9 % of it has been resettled. The state owns about another 2%... used for a variety of purposes. Parks and State forests occupy just over 15%.  Small scale commercial farmers occupy 3 and a half percent.  Large-scale multinational companies own another 2%  and commercial farmers, mostly white, own the final 24%. This land is of the country's best  farming land. 

17:37:

Here in the Midlands province, the state has already bought out many farmers. The state owns the area marked in orange. Despite a few successes, land reform has for the most part failed.

Rhino Farm used to have record wheat harvests under private ownership.  About ten years ago it was sold to be a state farm. Like many resettled areas, subsistence farmers were not given the back-up to become successful.  They appear to have been dumped on the land with few resources. An old lady who has lived on the farm for decades explained what's happening.

18:19:

OLD LADY: Harare farm has not been planted, Philipi farm has not been planted on, There are as many as 7 fields that have not been planted on in this area. There is no one there. Water is a real problem.

There is nothing in the dams, everything has broken down, Everything is broken, all the machines are gone.

You will look this way and that way there is no one planting there. Everything is just bush, we will probably all end up being eaten by lions.

Script:The growing poverty amongst rural Zimbabweans. the comparative wealth of white farmers and the slow pace of state land reform - it ‘s all fertile ground for invasions. What the war veterans are doing makes sense to many of the poor and the landless. It has struck a chord across the continent. The landless have followed the war veterans with invasions of their own. 

19:50:

RUVENGO gWANGWARA

This land is taken from our ancestors by the white man and given to THEIR RELATIONS, WHEREAS IT BELONGS TO US.  That is why we come here we need our land that is occupied by these white men.  We told them long back let us share this land but they didn't want to share.  That's why we come here because we want to share the land.  We are going to plow here.  We are not going anywhere because we need the land.  We occupied in the reserve where we are living.  We are squatted in one place and the plowing is so small nothing can be grown there.  Where these white men have hundreds of hecras.  Let us share together.  We come close together.

20:42:

The debate on land dominate the media. Debate is sharply divided between a critical independent press and a supportive state media. While the independents attack the government, the Herald and the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation reflect a government perspective.

Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation  News.

Conspiracy by enemies of the state

21:07:

Minister of Info, Post and Telecommunications, Chen Chutendwaga

It is all a network of racists lead by the Rhodesian Network International Inc, which is based in the United States and with  branches in Australia and other countries.  They are spearheading that and they have chosen MDC as their front.

21:37:

MUGABE: It was our government which brought democracy, human rights and an equal standard of living without racism.

21:59:

Trevor Ncube is the editor ofthe weekly newspaper, The Zimbabwe Independent. His newspaper's sales have doubled since January.

Trevor Ncube, Editor-in-Chief, The Zimbabwe Independent

It makes my heart sore, my heart bleeds to see the innocent farm workers being battered, to see the little property they have being burnt to ashes simply because they have chosen to belong to a party which is not the ruling party.  Its like we are not living in the 21st century.  Its like life and the world has moved on and left us behind.

22:30:

Tobacco Grading, Dolphin Park Farm, Centenary

The reports on the economy is gloomy. The land invasions and the pegging of the Zimbabwean dollar to the US dollar have made tobacco farmers reluctant to take their crops to the auction floors.

The opening of the Tobacco Auction Floors in April this year was a subdued affair.  Many black and white farmers are sitting on their tobacco rather than selling it because of low prices.

Clive Rimmer, tobacco farmer

Dolphin Park Farm

23:30:

CLIVE: If the prevailing prices are as they are, we so stand to lose a lot of money. If the country's currency does not devalue in the next couple of days, then we won't be able, then the prices we are fetching at the moment with the exchange rate as it is we won't be able to put a crop in next year anyway because all the inputs have had inflation in the last twelve months of anything over 50 per cent and we just  - the money we get back won't be able to provide the inputs of the next season.

But there is another crop at stake. Wheat fields are not being planted because farmers are unsure of their relationship with invading war veterans. This pivot in the Midlands province should be pumping water onto wheat fields.  The pivot ought to suck up water from this canal, which should be running from this dam, which was built privately by 17 farmers three years ago. Today the dam is worth 120 million Zim dollars. It holds four years supply of water - a wasted investment if you have no crops to irrigate.

24:43:

Meanwhile, in the nearby town of Kwekwe, business is also feeling the pinch.

24:54:

GARY CRAUSE

We are looking at a major reduction of winter crop.  You've got to start budgeting for 7/8 months without a significant income. For businesses to survive that is virtually impossible.

TERRY DOYLE

I have one person stay in my hotel last night.  I can't run a business like that.  I have 60 staff they've just had a staff increase last month which I am obliged to pay.  Its all going out and very little coming in. But that not just me that s everybody.

How are you feeling?

DOLF LANDMAN

At the moment a little bit depressed I must admit, you hear people talking about how they are making plans to go or leave.  Business is down.  Its very very depressing.  But we will hang in there.

25:52:

In town, the queue for diesel is lengthening. Down the road, there is a gold mine which will grind to a halt without diesel.

MIKE PARKER

Our diesel requirements are probably 40 000 litres a month.  In the past 3 months sicne the start of the year we have been suffering with shortages of supply  We have probably lost about 7 working days.  The current situation is that we have 3 days supply left and were not sure where our next suppply will come from.  So it impacts on us greatly.

26:27:

A crucial loan from European banks has been put on hold because of the political instability in Zimbabwe. Without the money, the mine may have to close. The mine could earn 100 million US dollars over the next nine years.

JOHN FARR

I think With the new project, bring a 100 million US Forex.  Even if you say a high percentage is imports  that's 200 million spent locally and 60 million in profit coming into the country.  That is good for the Zimbabwe economy.

There is an uneasy truce in Zimbabwe right now, between the haves and the have nots, between the landed and the landless. The election dates have finally been announced.

27:13:

We are very happy about what the war veterans have begun.  They are the ones that fought for the birth of this country. They should just carry on with us behind them.  We are behind that government, it is our government, it understands us very well.

27:30:

(Bright:) There are people that have benefited from the system, you know if you were feeding your family using ZANU-PF money, you want it to stay.

Everybody is angry. .

(Bright:) I am hopeful that there will be change quickly. If the elections are in 80 days or so days now there will be change. I want to take my anger to the ballot box.

END    28:09