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Mugabe warns white farmers to clear out the land in Zimbabwe!

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe today told white farmers, defying orders to hand over their land, that he stands by an August deadline for them to clear out and pave the way for his black resettlement land reforms.

"We set ourselves an August deadline for the redistribution of land and that deadline stands,"

Mugabe said in a televised address during a funeral for a former finance minister.

Mugabe's government had ordered 2,900 of the remaining 4,500 white commercial farmers to surrender their lands without compensation to black settlers by midnight (2200 GMT) last Thursday, August 8.

"We, the principled people of Zimbabwe, we, the true owners of this land, shall not budge. We shall not be deterred on this one vital issue, the land. The land is ours," Mugabe told more than 15,000 supporters.

Farming sources have estimated that about 40 percent of the farmers had obeyed the instruction but others were holding on in the hope of a reprieve from the country's courts or from Mugabe.

Mugabe said the deadline would allow new owners of the land enough time to prepare and plant for the new crop season, which should start in October.

White farmers defying the order to leave their land face up to two years in jail.

Returning to his regular condemnation of Britain's role in opposing his government and its land seizures, Mugabe said:

"No gold, no silver is precious enough to buy our sovereignty. We are not for sale. We are not for sale, and Zimbabwe is not for sale. Zimbabwe is for Zimbabweans. We are not for the highest bidder in Europe or elsewhere.

"Let (British Prime Minister Tony) Mr Blair hear it. We are not for the British bidder either," said Mugabe, who led the country to independence from Britain in 1980.

Farmers facing an abrupt end to a lifestyle they have lived for generations had hoped for a reprieve on Monday, but Mugabe did not back off.

Local government minister Ignatius Chombo was quoted earlier as telling the black farmers at Blanket, 100 km (60 miles) northwest of Harare: "Those (white farmers) who have not moved out of designated farms should immediately do so.

"The law will deal with those who continue to defy the government directive."

But police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena told the Herald police had had no reports of farmers resisting orders to leave their properties and believed the process was moving smoothly.

Zimbabwe's land reform programme, a trigger for tightening Western sanctions against Mugabe and his top aides, is being driven to a climax amid a worsening regional food crisis.

Up to 13 million people, close to half of them in Zimbabwe, could starve over the next six months as a result of drought and political mismanagement across six countries in the region.

Whites owned more than 70 percent of the best farmlands when colonial rule formally ended in 1980, but most have said they are willing to give up some of it under an organised programme.

History text book teaches tribal superitority in Zimbabwe's schools

Has anyone read the Dynamics of History Book 3, that was written by S Mukanya?  It was published by the College Press in 1995 and has been re-printed since then through 2011. People this book is being used nationwide by form 3 pupils as a text book.  Our history is being distorted in front of our eyes and we are not doing anything about it.  Our languages are slowly being compromised and we are not doing anything about it as a collective body.  There are quite a number of individuals that have tackled this issue as single-handedly, and I must say unless we approach this as a collective body, we will lose this battle if we have not already.   

Are our people aware of this distortion of our history. Surely something needs to be done to correct this:

On page 100, in the last paragraph, the book confidently claims that: "Lobengula died of Malaria."

On page 102, in chapter 10, titled: Chimurenga, the first sentence reads: "Chimurenga (Impi katthoka elibomvu) is the first liberation war in this country, from March 1896 to October 1897 and was to resume in the northeast under the leadership o Mpondera and Chingooo in 1901," it says.

This is despite the fact that the first resistance to the encroachment of imperialism in Zimbabwe was done by the Ndebele in the Anglo-Ndebele war of 1893. 

On page 111, the innocent and unsuspecting form three pupils are taught that: "At full noon in June, the slaughter of the whites was to start in Mashonaland, what then broke out at full noon in June was the Shona phase on Chimurenga 1.

"But although colonial historians would like it to look like two separate risings, it is interesting to note that what they call the Ndebele Rebellion was started not by the Ndebele but by the Shona people of Mberengwa.

 Whereas, on page 114, the book claims that the Ndebele were treated by the white settlers as 'dangerous' neighbours and the Shona as 'cowardly.' It was therefore a 'surprise that the very Shona people plunged into war in 1896.'

 The book goes on: "The second surprise was that the Shona fought on for more than a year and demonstrated greater determination than the Ndebele," it says.

On page 172, the book claims that Joshua Nkomo was weak and indecisive and preferred to negotiate and not fight the Ian Smith regime. It claims that Nkomo chose to go and see Julius Nyerere in Dar es Salaam for the purposes of forming a government in exile. It is said that on arrival in Tanzania, Nkomo and his team were 'surprised' that Nyerere did not 'want them' because he (Nyerere) like Robert Mugabe, believed that the struggle had to be fought and won at home. This is said to have made other leaders look down on Nkomo.

 "Inevitably, the other leaders were embarrassed and lost faith in Nkomo. On August 8, 1963, Zanu was formed in rebellion to Nkomo. Its president was Ndabaningi Sithole, the chairman was Hebert Chitepo, the secretary general was Robert Mugabe and the secretary for youth was Morton Malianga. These leaders needed dynamic and decisive leadership. They were for outright military confrontation with the settler regime," the book says.

On page 184, under a sub-chapter titled: The 1978 March 3 Agreement, the book says, Nkomo and former Zambian leader Dr Kennedy Kaunda feared elections and sought to by pass them.

It reads in part: "It became apparent that both Kaunda and Nkomo dreaded elections and wanted to by pass them to take over the control of the country against those confident of winning elections. Each of the settlement protagonists has his own candidate and each wanted his candidate to succeed Smith," reads the book in that section.

On page 193, the book claims that Zipra cadres disturbed development in Matabeleland and surprisingly the same chapter details history from 1980 to 1992 and has nothing about the Gukurahundi atrocities which claimed more than 20 0000 innocent lives.

Mugabe has described the period as a "moment of madness" and other Zanu-PF functionaries have like Emerson Mnangagwa have said the Gukurahundi case is a 'closed chapter.'

Reads the book: "However some sections of Zapu-PF did not accept electoral defeat of 1980. Although their representatives were brought into the government, they continued to plot a coup.

"…..In 1982, fighting erupted in Esigodini between Zanla and Zipra that were being integrated. Many lives were lost and most of the Zipra cadres retreated into the bush to continue fighting as guerrillas.

"They disrupted all government efforts to reconstruct Matabeleland and many schools closed" reads the book in part.

The book also says the 22 December 1987 was signed to stop Zipra banditry.

- Byo24News