Fuel Crisis and Farm Invasion Updates
- 14, 16, 17 March 2000
Sent: Saturday, 18 March 2000 3:19
Subject: CFU updates
Here's the full copy:
COMMERCIAL FARMERS' UNION
FARM INVASIONS
SUMMARY - 16/03/2000
Total February/Currently
under
invasion
Mash Central 163 / 107
Mash West (South) 53 / 41
Mash West (North) 31 / 29
Mash East 147 / 38
Manicaland 83 / 64
Midlands 57 / 34
Masvingo 48 / 40
Matabeleland 24 / 24
TOTAL 606 / 377
We have been contacted by the __________ Church, who are based at _________
In light of the current land crisis, they would like to help where they
can, and have suggested they be contacted should farmers require a safe
haven for their family during the current land invasions.
CFU FUEL REPORT - 14th MARCH 2000
Each week the report on the supply situation has been a little more
pessimistic than the previous report and regrettably the trend
continues.
SUPPLY SITUATION
The supply that came with the vessel which docked on 5th March has
already been absorbed and the incoming fuel from RSA via road and rail
may assist the South and West but has little influence in the rest of
the country.
Present stocks are as follows:
Noczim Depots
Feruka 3.9 million litres diesel
3.0 million litres petrol
Msasa 1.0 million litres petrol
0 diesel
Pipelines
Beira/Feruka 2.6 million litres petrol (infront)
12.8 million litres diesel (behind)
Feruka/Msasa 6.4 million litres petrol (infront)
2.0 million litres diesel (behind)
2.5 million litres Jet (behind)
INCOMING STOCKS
An incoming vessel was originally due between 11 - 13 March. This was
rescheduled for 17 -19 March and is now expected to dock on Wednesday
22nd March. The cargo is expected to comprise 19.3 million litres
diesel, 12.5 million litres petrol and 6.3 million litres Jet. Once
this ship docks and starts discharging its cargo into the Beira/Feruka
pipeline the fuel that is presently in the pipe will be discharged at
Feruka.
Noczim advised that there are two other shiploads on order, one due
between 25 -27 March and the other between 29 - 31 March. The forex to
pay for these last two cargos has not yet been secured. The fuel
problem basically boils down to a shortage of forex to pay for the
imports and the prospects in this area are not rosy.
Small, unspecified stocks are coming in for the South and Midlands by
rail from Sasol in RSA via the Botswana route and via road through Beit
Bridge.
COMMENTS FROM SOME OF THE STAKE HOLDERS
TRANSPORT OPERATORS
They were concerned about delays of up to 3 days in loading at the
Noczim Feruka depot. They are also experiencing bureaucratic delays at
Sasol and are upset by the shortage of fuel in Zimbabwe for their trucks
which are used to transport fuel. Some of their vehicles are being
relocated to neighbouring countries where they can obtain fuel to ply
their trade and this exacerbates the problems of moving the product
locally.
NRZ
Deliveries are slow because of congestion on the Botswana route due to
rerouting of all Beit Bridge rail traffic. RSA is short on rolling
stock and has restricted the use of its rail tankers.
MOTOR TRADE
Service Stations are now considered to be a very high-risk business by
bankers, and the motor trade envisages many of their service stations
will be forced to close down in the forthcoming weeks due to debt.
Management of fuel sales to motorists is a major problem.
BUS OWNERS
70% of their fleet is grounded and their members are in desperate
straits.
TOURISM
Rental cars have been abandoned on the highways by disillusioned
tourists when they have run out of fuel.
OIL COMPANIES
Oil companies were concerned at the decreasing availability of product.
They said there was about 70% of needs available in January and February
but there had been a remarkable decrease in March where availability was
now down to about 30 - 35% of needs.
They were of the opinion that until sufficient supplies of foreign
exchange became available that the present trend would continue.
A black market is developing at a very rapid rate as shortages
continue. Oil companies and motor trade representatives are very
concerned about these irregularities and have requested that instances
of overcharging and other corruption should be reported to them directly
or through the CFU so that they can be dealt with. All details must be
verifiable so that effective action can be taken.
Fuel Facts
.....information for the nation
The Latest Fuel Update as at 14th March, 2000
Zimbabwe's fuel stocks are still severely depleted. The rate of importation falls a long
way short of demand.
§ Despite the fact that the pipeline has been operational for a
week, fuel receipts at
NOCZIM's Feruka and Msasa terminals are erratic and no material
improvements over the next seven days is likely.
§ Until there is continuity of fuel imports via both vessel and
pipeline to Zimbabwe,
there will be no meaningful difference to the country's fuel stocks
and there will continue to be severe and frequent stock outs at service
stations and elsewhere.
§ Safety is a major concern to the oil industry as fuel is an
extremely hazardous product that is very volatile and highly
inflammable.
Service stations and other fuel suppliers:
§ Should not fill containers
§ Should not sell fuel above the regulated price. This is illegal.
§ If you are offered fuel at above the regulated price, please
contact any of the oil companies or the Motor Trade Association of
Zimbabwe
§ A number of avoidable incidents at service stations have
occurred and the general public is asked to demonstrate caution when
driving past a fuel queue and to be patient and orderly when waiting in
a queue. The fuel queues at service stations around the country will
continue for some time to come.
Please continue to conserve fuel wherever you can.
Thank You.
Fuel Facts will continue to carry regular, factual updates
*********************************************************************
NEWS FROM THE INTERNET
Zimbabwe faces more violence amid crisis - DAILY MAIL & GUARDIAN
The threat of violence in Zimbabwe is growing ahead of elections, with dozens
arrested in the last week after violent clashes between supporters of Zanu-PF and the
new opposition party.
CRIS CHINAKA reports
THE threat of violence in Zimbabwe is growing along with the country's economic
and political woes ahead of elections in which President Robert Mugabe's 20-year
government will face its biggest challenge.
Political analysts say Mugabe made the economic situation worse by encouraging
veterans of the 1980 war of independence to stay on white commercial farms they
invaded in the last month. They see his move as a desperate campaign strategy for the
April parliamentary polls.
"Things are deteriorating...and the atmosphere has become explosive,"
said Alfred Nhema, chairman of the political science department at the University of
Zimbabwe.
"There is a clear attempt by the ruling party to intimidate the whole country for
electoral gain. They are terrorising farmers and threatening everyone else they think is
campaigning against Zanu-PF," he said.
As cases of campaign violence increase, Mugabe's supporters have threatened violence
if their Zanu-PF party loses power to the new Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC).
Police have in the past week arrested dozens after violent clashes between supporters
of Zanu-PF and MDC, a six-month-old broad-based opposition movement seen as the
ruling party's greatest threat in April.
"For Zanu-PF this is both real and psychological. The prospects of trouble are
enhanced by the fact that for the first time, Zanu-PF is meeting opponents who are
prepared to stand up to it at the ballot box and on the street."
The private Daily News on Tuesday urged the government to tackle campaign
violence and probe charges of an assassination plot against MDC leader Morgan
Tsvangirai. Mugabe's current six-year presidential term only ends in 2002 but analysts
say he fears his position will be greatly undermined if Zanu-PF loses the parliamentary
poll.
Last Friday, the 76-year-old former guerrilla leader hinted he might be behind the
invasions of white-owned farms. He told hundreds of war veterans who have occupied
about 400 farms in the past month they could stay if they did so peacefully. He also
promised government help in dividing the land.
But an opinion poll last week showed that few Zimbabweans thought farms should be
taken away from whites and want him to go.
Mugabe has argued that it is morally wrong for minority whites to own 70 percent of
prime farming land while blacks are crammed into unproductive areas. He says former
colonial power Britain must pay for land seized to resettle blacks because it was
"stolen" when the country was colonised in the 1890s.
Mugabe's opponents say he has failed to implement a decent land reform programme
since he came to power when the former Rhodesia gained independence in 1980.
They say the current farm invasions are targeting farmers who helped the
“No"-campaign which handed Mugabe a humiliating referendum defeat last month by
rejecting his proposed draft constitution.
The opposition MDC also says some of those claiming to be war veterans are too
young to have fought in the 1970s war, and are rented crowds from Zimbabwe's large
jobless pool.
Emotions are running high in the country.
At a five-km queue on Saturday where a Reuters correspondent spent 14 hours to buy
fuel, in short supply since December, an angry man walked up and down, stabbing his
finger at a newspaper report in which Mugabe denied responsibility for Zimbabwe's
economic crisis.
"This man is unbelievable. He is saying 'I don't know who could have managed this
economy better than me.' He is mad," the angry man shouted.
Hours later he was up again, silently holding up a newspaper poster headlined:
"Cyclone Robert wreaks havoc."
______________________________________________________________
CARTE BLANCHE
This Land Is My Land
According to reports from Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe said this weekend that
the squatters on white farms will be allowed to stay and that the farmers should realise
that the land is for Zimbabweans. He has up to now refused to take action against the
groups that have invaded more than 200 farms, saying that it is a peaceful protest. We
headed for Zimbabwe this week to see just how peaceful it is.
"We are taking the things which was captured by the whites, but we have come back
to recapture our land."
Over the last 2 weeks, 200 Zimbabwean farms have been invaded. The occupiers are
spearheaded by war veterans from the war of independence.
It's not the first time the land issue has erupted in the country, but this time it looks
like things may be turning nasty.
-------- owns a 1000ha farm in the Karoi district north of Harare. Last Saturday, he
was the first farmer in the area to be invaded by the war veterans. A crowd of about 50
people came knocking on his gate. Clearly they meant business.
"While we were standing there negotiating the one guy had me by the nose and
Another was slapping me across the face. They said if you don't open this gate we're
going to smash it. I was nervous, hell of a nervous, and then the ssociation chairman,
-------- said I'd better open the gate. Then they all sat around here, and then the six
main guys came and introduced themselves as the committee, and the main guy said his
name was Jesus."
Jesus and the committee wanted to see a map of the property. They demanded that
----- measures out half of his farm and writes out a signed agreement that he would
give them the land.
"You got to understand they were sitting there pointing their axes at us saying you
whites have come here and you've done this to us and this to us, and they said look at
all this, the bricks, the lawn, the swimming pool, the flowers all belong to us. We're
being kind by doing you a favour by leaving you half. And they said right which half
are you giving us. Under absolute duress, I mean I felt like I was a hostage in a
take-over, I suggested they take the arable land outside the game fence."
Because ----- locked his perimeter fence during the night, the invaders became
convinced that he had an arms cache stashed somewhere on his property. The next
morning the whole group of 50 forced their way into the house and searched every
room for these weapons. ---- had to display what he had: a shotgun, a hunting rifle and
a revolver.
"I picked up the revolver and handed it to them to have a look and then they wouldn't
give it back. Then I looked Jesus in the eyes and said look we cut a deal here, can I
have my revolver back? And then the guy wasn't concentrating so I snatched it from
him and put it back in the gun safe and locked it as quickly as possible.
The police never came and assisted us. There was no police presence anywhere. It was
complete lawlessness, it felt like there was no law-abiding citizen on the face of the
Earth." Since then another 10 farms in the area have been invaded - in each instance,
once negotiations with the farmer were complete, the main group moved to the next
farm and a small group is left behind to keep some kind of presence. It is clear that
these invasions are highly organised.
"We were there but we cannot explain anything about that with the exception of Jesus,
he is the one who can explain."
The leader of the war veterans in the Karoi area is Rex Chakwana - otherwise known
as Jesus. We met him later that day at an emergency meeting convened by
representatives of the farmers and the war vets.
Rex maintains that there is enough land available, and that whatever land is standing
idle, should be handed over to the war vets "How do you decide which farms to
take-over?"
"Those which we see are not being fully utilised, some are not being utilised properly.
There is one old white farmer who is sitting on four farms. I want you to see the
portion of tobacco and all the thousands of hectares lying available. We do not say we
want the whole farm, just some land here as it was given to the white man after the
Second World War.
We should share it equally, he made his money but I do not want his money.
Let's share the land that is there today."
On some farms, the invaders have cut down small trees and started building wooden
structures on the land. And clearly it is not just war veterans that are involved - it
appears many local people are also joining in.
Understandably, farmers are feeling nervous.
"I think when they arrive at the fence, how ever long it's been, if anyone steps passed
that fence I'm going to shoot them."
------ has been living on his farm all his life. On Wednesday he received information
that his land was next in line to be taken. On the way back from a neighbouring farm,
we came across yet another group of invaders.
They were marching to the homestead, chanting war songs. We got out to try and
speak to them, while George got involved in a heated argument with one of the war
vets. Very soon, the mood turned ugly on both sides.
"I would have pulled that bastard . I was close."
"But that would have started a whole war!"
"Well, maybe it should start!"
----- knows that his farm is next. It could be in half an hour, it could be in two days -
but that an invasion is coming is certain.
Reinforcements are called in.
Everyone fears that sooner or later something is going to blow.
"I think the inevitable is going to happen. People must just keep their cool and not
always try and have their own way."
"What do you think is going to happen?"
"I think it will be a blood bath."
And the pressure is mounting. The land issue is as old as Zimbabwe itself, and it has
been mishandled by the Mugabe government time and again, with idle threats to white
farmers on the one hand and empty promises to the war vets and landless on the other.
Meanwhile, the economy has never been in a worse state. The Zim dollar has
crumbled, inflation hovers around 60%, people queue for hours to fill their tanks and
the poor are desperate - a fertile breeding ground for old resentments.
"You can't have three or four farms to one man where people are starving on the other
side. During the war these Boers they did some bad things to us, so that's why we are
advancing."
But observers point out that the land issue seems to be in the headlines every time
there is an election on the horizon - as is the case this year in April. And president
Mugabe appears to be supporting or at least condoning these invasions as a desperate
attempt to regain favour with voters.
"If we cannot get the land from the people, then they will get it without us. They will
cease it."
And for the first time in 20 years, Mugabe's Zanu-PF has a serious challenger in the
form of the MDC - the Movement for Democratic Change.
But farmers fear that if the land issue erupts into violence, it might give the
government an excuse to declare a state of emergency and postpone or even cancel the
April elections.
"Someone is going to crack somewhere down the line. You know we've had a
hands-off approach. We don't argue, we let them do what they do, and that's the way
we've been handling the situation."
The question is for how long. Land is an emotional issue here. Much of Zimbabwe's
wealth is generated through farming. Attitudes around land are hardening on all sides.
"We've known there's been a land problem since 1980 but the governments done
nothing about it. It's not our problem, it's not our fault that they haven't resettled the
people. The land is available."
"Now I 've got a farm and you guys are advancing on my farm, what am I supposed to
do? Look here I've got holes in my legs from the war - from you guys."
"We fought for that, no matter what land. Now he's showing us his holes which he .
we are going to go ahead, that's our policy."
"I was born on this farm in 1948, I've spent my life on this farm and I do not intend to
give it up."
"I am taking back what they were promised when they went to war, but they forget I
also went to war to get that land which they took from me." "So you want your
reward?"
"Not my reward, that's my right, it's my land!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Subject:
Farm Invasions Sitrep - 17/03/2000
Date:
Fri, 17 Mar 2000 16:11:53 +0200
COMMERCIAL FARMERS' UNION
FARM INVASIONS UPDATES
SITREP
Most Regions continue to have a few new invasions. Generally peaceful
except in Mash West North. In Karoi work stoppages have occured
and two heated incidences have taken place in the Lion's Den and
Chinhoyi areas. A CNN reporter and cameraman were involved in an
altercation.
The Court Hearing will be heard at 3:00 p.m. today, Friday 17 March.
SUMMARY AS AT 17/03/2000
Total since February / Currently under invasion
Mash Central 163 / 107
Mash West (South) 56 / 44
Mash West (North) 40 / 37
Mash East 155 / 73
Manicaland 97 / 81
Midlands 57 / 34
Masvingo 48 / 40
Matabeleland 24 / 24
TOTAL 640 / 440