Victim tells story of Mugabe thuggery

Eric and Joan Harrison

A farmer who spent 30 years building a successful citrus and sugar cane operation only to see thugs supported by Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe destroy it has told an American radio interviewer his nation's people are wonderful, but its politics horrible.

"I love [Zimbabwe]. I love the people. They are willing workers. They have a helluva sense of humor. The level of education is one of the highest in Africa. They're good people," Eric Harrison told KSFO radio talk show host and WND columnist Barbara Simpson.

"It's just that some have had their minds twisted a bit," he said.

Harrison talked with Simpson by telephone from his apartment in Harare, where he moved after government-sponsored thugs came to his successful farming operation and ordered him to leave.

In a synopsis of his situation for a company that is publishing his book about his trials, Jambanja, he describes how one of the government "agents," named "Whitehat," stepped forward:

"We are the new owners of Maioio Farm," he said. "You have got 24 hours to get off … now move it!"

Harrison had battled the shadow of the nation's turbulence over its independence to create a successful farm. Just at the point where his farm was paid off and his crops were bringing in cash, Mugabe's agents started confiscating personal assets and redistributing them to the favored of those in power.

Harrison told Simpson that he was speaking on a telephone line that probably was monitored, and she would have to understand his answers.

But his depictions coincided largely with U.S. State Department condemnations of political powers in Zimbabwe that have given parents the choice of feeding their children or voting their conscience.

WND reported earlier that families are hiding their children and making plans to smuggle food across the border just so they can keep eating. Christians, especially, are being targeted because of their efforts to help those the government has cut off from supplies. There even have been reports of arrests during Christian church services.

Mugabe had been challenged by opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who recently sought protection in another nation's embassy after members of his campaign staff were rounded up by police on orders from Mugabe, who has exercised near-absolute authority in the southern African nation since its independence in 1980.

Residents, however, have begun to rebel. Earlier this year, Tsvangirai collected a reported 47 percent of the vote to Mugabe's 43 percent in an election, sparking a long fight that was scheduled to end in a runoff election, until Mugabe's forces started combing the countryside for any opposition supporters and punishing them, insiders have reported.

As WND reported earlier, In Touch Mission International appealed to the free world for prayers for the violence expected for the Christian faithful in Zimbabwe caught in the crossfire of Mugabe's war.

Harrison said the violence that has accompanied the political war has been intense for residents. But with 80 percent unemployment, inflation running at thousands of percent, and a complete collapse in the nation's once-thriving food production industry, something has to change.

"It's just ridiculous," he said. "They just cannot go on."

He said the farms were taken from their rightful owners, then given as political plums to those faithful to Mugabe.

But in throwing out those who built the industry, he said, officials failed to recognize that farm knowledge doesn't necessarily come from a book.

"There are very few of the farms that were taken that are functioning," he told Simpson, "let alone functioning at a good standard."

His own farm, he said, has been destroyed because the new residents have used the grapefruit trees for firewood.

He confirmed he knew "quite a few" of the farmers who resisted the government's confiscation, and were killed. But on the telephone line he suspected was monitored, said, "I don't want to get into that."

Now in his Harare apartment he has completed his book and works on creating resources for sustainable agriculture programs.

The White House has said the U.S. is taking the accusations of atrocities by Mugabe to the United Nations Security Council.

"We want the world to be speaking with one voice to condemn the violence and intimidation that has taken place against the opposition and also against the Zimbabwean people," said spokeswoman Dana Perino.

"It was abundantly clear that the Tsvangirai party won on March 29th. And consistent with their constitution, they agreed to a run-off. But subsequently, President Mugabe decided to subvert democracy and to thwart the will of the people of Zimbabwe, to the point that the opposition leader has decided he would no longer participate in the run-off in order to protect his own people.

"We do not believe that the Mugabe regime can be considered legitimate until a free and fair election is allowed," she said.

Simpson told WND her concerns are with the "form of genocide" that is going on now in Zimbabwe.

"In a sense we're watching another Rwanda," she said. "There's a terrible brew that is being concocted in that part of the world that worries me a lot. I don't think it's good."

A coordinator for South Africa for Christ the King Community Church of Mt. Vernon, Wash., is telling first-hand of the struggles.

CTK is a small group-based Christian movement that was launched in the Pacific Northwest about 10 years ago and has expanded its ministry rapidly across the U.S. and around the world. A coordinator for its African ministries, whose name is being withheld because of his activities, told WND people are terrified.

"The violence is affecting everyone. The economy, with inflation now being 168,000 percent, leaves very little chance of members affording food and sustenance," he said. "In this, I have one of our attendees, who has family in South Africa 'front' financial assistance for us in Zim," he reported. "I give the funds to his family here in SA and he then gives material aid or money to our attendees in Zim.

"It is virtually impossible to transfer money to Zim, as the Zim government is keeping a very close vigil over any foreign funds entering the country. The option I am exercising is virtually the only one available at this state," he said.

Bloggers report assaults and murders in the name of voting correctly.

Sites such as This is Zimbabwe have document myriad cases of physical attacks, confiscation or destruction of property, including the burning of livestock and bulldozing of entire residential areas.

Amnesty International also has reported Mugabe's supporters are forcibly recruiting youths to carry out attacks against opposition members.