Battered but not beaten white Zimbabwe farmers determined to remain
It was a frigid June night at Pickstone Mine in Zimbabwe when 67-year-old Angela Campbell — soaking wet, her arm broken and a gun to her head — signed a document vowing to give up the fight for her family’s farm.
The kidnappers demanding her signature at gunpoint were “war veterans” from President Robert Mugabe’s heyday as a liberation hero, and they made it clear that her refusal would mean more beatings.
Though Campbell signed the document, her son-in-law said she has no intention of giving up her battle; Campbell’s family will be in Windhoek, Namibia, on Wednesday to present arguments to a Southern African Development Community tribunal.
In pursuing the case, the Campbells and 77 fellow Zimbabwean farmers are risking theft, torture and death for what may be their only remaining chance to save the homes and farms so coveted by Mugabe and his loyalists.
Mugabe blames the West for his nation’s soaring inflation and poverty. But analysts say Mugabe’s 2000 “resettlement” policy, in which property was snatched from white farmers and redistributed to landless blacks, is more to blame for the country’s turmoil.
Watch a report from the time of the Campbell attack»