The Ugly Side of Present Day Zimbabwe
Letter Photos A Country that once was the pearl of Africa is now but the pawn of politics and man's greed.
Here at Hippo Haven, within the Save Valley Conservancy, things have not improved; they are far worse now than two months ago.
Two weeks ago our new "neighbors"- the war veterans- murdered a large baboon. His name was Eric, an animal that has visited our home for the
previous seven years. His crime: being the leader of a large family.The war veterans say that in the next months, once their crops have been planted and grown, he will bring his group to raid their crops.
We are speaking about crops that will not survive anyway. If the wildlife do not eat any that manage to grow, the lack of rainfall will finish off any hardier crops. If we get rains, the chance is that this year will actually be a genuine drought. We live in one of the lowest rainfall areas within Zimbabwe, with no surface water.The one main river,the Turgwe, only flows annually. Up to a few months ago this area was for wild animals.
These people have stolen over 35,000 acres of land next to our home. On that land there must be, at a “guesstimate”, over five hundred baboons, plus a
multitude of other animals- those that have survived the poacher’s snares and their hunting with dogs. Four months ago one saw large groups of impalas, kudu, zebra, wildebeest and the odd cheetah. Now if one is very lucky they’ll see three or four animals in tiny groups, all absolutely terrified of man on foot. This speaks volumes, as this area, for the last five years, has been a non-hunting area devoted to photographic safaris. The wildlife were used to walking groups of tourists and had no fear. Now if one meets an impala herd or a group of kudu, they are so nervous they run the minute they see you.Killing the baboon was only an excuse, as these men were poaching, searching for other animals. They killed him out of spite; they do not eat baboon meat.
Their dogs (four in total) chased him to near exhaustion. Finally, he was cornered in a dry riverbed only one kilometer from our home. The men who accompanied the dogs were running behind them, waiting until the baboon's strength was depleted. With the constant haranguing of dogs biting at his body, Eric did not have a chance.
He was a big male, and he managed to rip two of their dogs fatally, but the other two held him at bay. When the dogs' excited yapping slowed down, as Eric's strength diminished and exhaustion stopped his gallant fight, the men surrounded him. Using rocks, he was stoned to death.I know this because Silos- the guy who works with us- says that is how they kill baboons in the communal lands, plus we found Eric's body, the tracks on
the ground, as well as the rocks-which spoke volumes. Robert Mamungaere, the war vet, so-called chief, has told us they intend to kill all baboons, all bush pigs, and warthogs, as those animals will eat their crops.How do they expect to stop some of the one-thousand elephants that live within this conservancy?
Yet this crop business is such folly. Commercial farmers years and years ago looked at this land and tried, with plenty of financial backing, to produce crops, but it failed. One cannot even produce enough maize on a yearly basis to supply an average-sized family; the rains in this part of Zimbabwe are far too erratic. The land is suitable for only one thing and that is wild animals.
This Wildlife Conservancy has been negotiating for years with South Africa and Mozambique to join up with the Trans Frontier Peace Park initiative- enabling various bordering countries to share their environments as a whole, to have a huge wildlife area where there will be no border crossings and the animals can roam over millions of acres of bush, like in the old days, before the onslaught of man. The Peace Park will bring prosperity to people who, at present, live below the poverty line, where
thousands will benefit far more than with their present lifestyle. Zimbabwe should not be sinking into the mud of oblivion. The potential for so many is there and the infrastructure to achieve these goals has already been put in place. Yet here in present day Zimbabwe man makes a mockery of any form of progress; he can only destroy, like locusts.How many animals need to die before sanity returns? Will this madness really stop?
My friend the baboon was only doing what all males like to do: protect what is his. In the baboon's case, he was the leader of over thirty other baboons. His females and offspring were dependant on his dominant stance. Eric knew the areas where the best fruits grew, when to rest and when to move; he was the chief. Now his family is without guidance and other males will compete to take over. There will be more mortality.
Since I wrote in July, we have found a further 89 snares; the game scouts from our neighbors another 72. A total of 161 instruments of death in a
small area surrounding the Turgwe River. In these snared areas, we found the remains of five skinned and smoked animals: three kudu, one waterbuck, and one young bush pig. This number does not include smaller antelopes which were taken away whole.On the 21st of September, the war veteran in our area returned to the house he has stolen and moved in one kilometer from our home. He has been away at
his real home in the communal lands, and supposedly attending meetings.Jean-Roger went to see him to ask what was going on. He had told us that his people would stay in the 35,000 acres they have taken over. He told us that their cattle and their hunting dogs would remain on their "farms". We are talking about pristine wildlife bush, non-arable. This man had told us that he is in charge of all the war veterans and squatters around us, and that certain rules would be adhered to. But his people broke the rules within the first few months. Just recently, on the 6th of September, they cut our telephone line yet again, having previously cut it in January.
Mamungaere says that it is not his people who do such things, no, that it is the "bad people, who are criminals, that have taken over the other property on the western side of our home, the property called Angus. It is strange though how the snares we have been finding, as well as one skinned kudu cow, were literally 50 meters from the house he moved into. It is not possible that he knows nothing of the poaching. These people all work together.
His own nephew who is employed by us (we only found out their blood relationship after the problems began in Zimbabwe) tells us that his uncle is the leader of the poaching rings. Whatever, it is obvious Mamungaere knows exactly what is going on when it comes to theft, poaching, etc. He tells my husband that the poachers on Angus are not happy with us removing their snares and that they will kill us! He says that he would hate to see such a thing occur but then "who would know how it had happened, there would be no proof, as out there in the bush accidents can happen!"
He then tells us we must be good neighbors: donate money to a rain dance, make sure we do not in any way upset his people, allow their dogs to kill the animals, after all that is natural, and so on.
We have two cars, so we should give him one. The fact is that the one vehicle is the second-hand Land Rover belonging to the Trust and the other is our 15-year old personal pickup truck. When Jean visited him they sat on polystyrene blocks. Mamungaere says "See I am a poor man. I cannot even afford chairs". The blocks were in the house he has taken over. The man owns over fifty heads of cattle, which he has brought into this conservancy. The government pays him probably about ten times the amount of a normal agricultural worker, plus he was given all the massive remuneration packages that the government gave to war veterans a few years ago. The man is full of "bull". He tells us if we hassle he will kill the hippos.
After Jean visited with him yesterday, suddenly a bush fire was right on top of us. It was obviously set deliberately. For four hours, Jean-Roger, Silos, and myself back-burned to try to save as much grazing in the area immediately around our home. We have a few wild animals that live right next to our home as well as the 20 hippos. Fighting a fire is extremely hard work, and you need a lot of people. We did not want to call in the genuine owner of this land as these people hate him and we felt that he has enough problems without asking him to come and help us.
Yet by 4pm, two hours into fighting the fire, we realized we could not go fast enough, so I phoned and he kindly sent us ten of his men. We managed to save about thirty percent of the grass.
We have just returned from walking the burnt out area. The scent of burnt bush, smoldering trees and probably a multitude of dead tiny creatures is an awful stench; it sticks in your throat and nose and clogs your senses. For days after such a fire your eyes are sore, as the soot is on the air and the smell stays in the house as well as outside in the bush. We lie in bed at night now and the breeze is not filled with the normal scents of an African night- the air carries death and destruction. Burnt out bush looks similar in our eyes to what one would imagine a nuclear fall-out could achieve. Black land, dying trees burning from the heart of their bodies, nothing moving, the air still and the landscape sorrowful; the only sign of life is a few opportunist birds flying in search of scorched insects.
These people yesterday burnt, during our hot season (i.e. what is called a hot burn), probably in total 20,000 acres of bush land, destroyed. There is talk that, this year, the drought that we are supposed to have now (which is a façade by the way and a lie as all dams are full, because we did have rains last year, they just came early and finished early) has an eighty percent chance of occurring.
These war veterans have brought their cattle into this wildlife conservancy. Already the cattle are thin, now they will actually have hardly any grazing because the same people set fire to the bush. Tell me, where is the logic? Of course there is none!
Then we consider the wildlife. Central government has said all along that this land is not suitable for people or any form of agriculture. They have stated it will remain for wildlife. Yet they have also said they will remove the people and let the area turn once more into a productive wildlife land. Instead our war veteran neighbors threaten us, tells us they will kill most of the animals, that they will kill the hippos if they come on their land and interfere with their crops. The people have burnt out the land. They are continuing to go in and out of the conservancy with meat, using their donkeys and cattle as transport while we have foot and mouth outbreaks. Yet the man in charge of agriculture in this country has stated to the media that there are no cattle in the conservancies. Well then, the forty odd cows living next to us are obviously a figment of our imagination!
We read in papers from overseas and through e-mails that a lot of people out there in the world do not agree with this present situation in Zimbabwe. We hear from foster parents in England, America, France, and Holland how they all are horrified by what is happening here. Our New Zealand foster parents at least can be proud of their government, who openly criticized what is happening.
We also read the negative statements that this is all a big conspiracy and goes much deeper than the politics that we experience living here on the
ground. We read that White people in Africa do not belong and that anyone with half a brain will get out before it is too late. We are told we are racists because we have white skins, but if one repeats that statement to a Black war veteran and you tell him he is being a racist he will probably try to either hurt you or kill you. To have
dialogue with such people is not easy as they live with hatred and anger. Reason and compassion do not exist.So where does that leave us?
The Turgwe River has kept us busy. We have enough problems thanks to droughts as well as the more recent cyclone. There is a dam that was built 80kms upstream of the Turgwe back in the seventies. The normal procedure in the dry season is for the water authorities to let water out of the dam and this naturally comes into the Turgwe, replenishing the river system. This year they have not bothered. The dam is full but they have let no water down.
Jean-Roger completed opening up the hippos' pool at the weir by early September, then literally one week ago the river stopped running. By walking upstream about five kilometers, we found where the river's channels split and the part that enters the pool had filled with sand and closed up.
The next day Jean-Roger and Silos dug trenches at that point and within four hours the water once more flowed into the pool and exited over the weir wall. Now six days later it is still flowing, but slowly, so they will have to return once more. The trouble is that if the water authorities do not let some water out of the dam, then the Turgwe will stop flowing altogether. We will cross that bridge when we come to it.
The hippos are well; Bob the bull was limping for three days. This was extremely worrying as he weighs in at around two and a half tons, and a hippo without one of his legs is a dead hippo. I could see absolutely no sign of a wound on leg or foot. No snare, no cut. I believe he hurt it by either fighting with one of the other hippos or perhaps a natural accident like slipping in a pothole or some such thing.
Sadly, these days when an injury occurs one first thinks it is man-related. I have heard horrendous stories of ways these poachers hurt a hippo and of course that thought passed through my mind. They bury planks of wood tied to sturdy wire with nails in the wood. A hippo stands on the plank in a narrow area and cannot back out and hence has his foot impaled, then men move in and kill him.
Though, as I wrote in a previous article, one has to remain with Hope. If one lets the negative vibes enter one's heart and mind then one is finished. So dear Bob hopefully hurt his leg naturally. The good news is he is fine now, with only a tiny limp. Bob is not a youngster and, although in superb condition, he may not be as agile on his feet as in his younger days! Some of the well-known animals that have become part of our family are all getting older.
Boon, the leader of the vervet monkeys who daily visit our home, now resembles an old man, with a wrinkled face and drooping eyes. But to me he is still the most beautiful of all of the vervets For the first time this year in the 12 years we have lived here, the vervets have surprised us. Two of their members have given birth to twins. This seems quite unusual and we are wondering what to think of it. Both sets of twins were born mid-September and are doing well. The daughters of the previous year help to babysit one of the twins and then mother can concentrate on one twin at a time. Perhaps the monkeys know something we do not know? Maybe there will be no rain, so they breed double hoping one will survive? Who knows, all we do know is that this is the first time it has happened here.
Sometimes I wonder: will we and the other younger animals actually be given the chance to grow old, all together? With this present situation in Zimbabwe I am not so sure.
I try to remain positive, I ask little of life. Just for these animals to have a future and for us to be allowed to remain as their custodians. To survive financially, and for the stress of the last two years to vanish. To see a wildlife area returned to what it was but only a short time ago .To see Zimbabwe reborn with happy smiling Black people who are not told over their radios and televisions that we the Whites are public enemy number one and totally responsible for all their woes.
We in this country lived in harmony, the relationship between most cultures was good. Will it return?
Rules are made in life for various reasons. If there are laws they are normally put there for a good reason, to maintain stability and to give people direction. For example, if people are allowed to kill the animals and are not stopped then they will kill them all. The stretch of the Turgwe River that these people have taken over no
longer has one single fish.The water at this time of the year is so low that one can net the fish by wading through in, at most, a foot of water. These women and children who are here (most of their wives have remained in their genuine homes preparing their genuine crop lands) have cleared out the fish. Now they poach on our side of their so-called land.
We have literally two pools left in the Turgwe. One is the hippo's pool and the other is a tiny offshoot from the weir where the last fish have congregated. All the fishing birds have moved to us to try and catch what fish they can: gray herons, black storks and wooly necked storks, the king of the heron- the goliath, fish eagles and all the kingfishers and smaller wading birds. These birds need to eat as well .There are plenty of fish left for them and for the river to be restocked once the rain arrives. Yet now these women sneak to our pool and net the fish. The only pool safe from their netting is the hippo's pool. 20 crocodiles and 19 hippos are a good deterrent.
The women are not netting for food but for a business. They make more money these days from fish and killing animals than they have ever seen in their lives before. Most of the war veterans and squatters on wildlife land and farms that held wild animals have prospered tremendously from killing the animals. Now they finish off the fish.A good friend of mine was born in Mozambique, and at this moment he lives in Harare in Zimbabwe. He told me awhile ago that when he was kicked out of Mozambique he was not even allowed to take his transistor radio, that his family had been successful farmers and prospered and employed many other
people. He lost all. However, that was over nearly thirty years ago.My friend has Black blood although he looks more White than Black, but he was thrown out of his place of birth even though he is a man of peace, a great humanitarian and one who tries always to help others. He told me that Africa, as we know it, is dying, that all the animals died in Mozambique except in tiny pockets of the country. Here in Zimbabwe will we lose all animals?
I live my life for these Turgwe hippos. I believe they have a right to life, they belong in Africa as much as anybody. They did not ask for this wholesale destruction of a wildlife environment, but just want to lead their natural lives.
Young Hope, the baby hippo born in early February, is now seven months old. She needs to grow and breed and be a mother hippo. Will she be given that
chance?
Karen Paolillo, Hippo Haven, Save Valley Conservancy, Zimbabwe. 25th
September 2002.
