War Veterans Adding Insult To Injury

Having already seized his farm and much of his personal property, Digby Nesbitt has now been forced to sell his crocodiles for next to nothing.

Is there nothing that the pro-Mugabe war veterans will not stoop to?

"Machete wielding and boisterous war veterans chanting ZANU PF revolutionary songs on Thursday descended on former Chiredzi white crocodile farmer Digby Nesbitt's homestead in the sugar growing town and ordered him to sell his over 8000 crocodiles worth about US$1,5 million for a song or risk watching them slaughtered by the liberation war fighters.

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The war vets, ostensibly working under the instructions of police Senior Assistant Commissioner Edmore Veterai, the Matebeleland North police commander, who grabbed Nesbitt's crocodile farm last month, ordered the hapless former white farmer to sell all his crocodiles for only US$150000.

Fearing that his reptile business might just vanish like blue mist, Nesbit complied with the belligerent war veterans order and sold all his reptiles for a song which where then bought by Senior Assistant Commissioner Veterai himself and his cronies."

Forcing someone to sell their property at a ridiculously low price - probably below cost - by using the threat of violence must be a crime in Zimbabwe, but because those involved are Mugabe's war veterans and one of his senior police officers, no corrective action will be taken.

"I have no option save to sell these crocodiles for the amount which they want me to sell them. What else can I do? If they tell me that they will kill all of them, after all this property is no longer mine after the court ruled that I must leave to pave way for Mr Veterai. Where else can I take the crocodiles to? I have to oblige with what they have told me to do," 'said Nesbitt."

Having lived for a few years in Chiredzi (albeit twenty years ago), I know just how much time, effort and money Nesbitt put into the Lowveld, and I find it sickening that Mugabe's veterans still hound and harass the farmers in order to remove any vestige of decency that remains from the farmers. Why should Nesbitt sell his crocodiles to Veterai? What does he know about crocodile farming?

Isn't he a policeman? When was he actually going to do some police work?

"Crocodile farming was my life but my life has to move on after losing the land under which I carried my project, life has to go on because there is nothing really which I can do," Nesbitt said.

Some of the war veterans who confronted Nesbitt were putting on T-shirts emblazoned with President Mugabe's face and vowed to kick out all the remaining white farmers in Chiredzi who they accused of sabotaging the economy and ill-treating blacks."

So the fact that the people were fed in abundance and excess food was exported counts for nothing now? The failure of the economy is because of the land being seized, more often than not, forcibly.

Robb WJ Ellis

The Bearded Man