Mugabe and the White African (15)

Nimo, those reviews are more or less all the same, this is why my responses are more or less all the same. "if they want to eat, then they need white farmers" , this is what Mike Campbell and Ben Freeth are broadcasting around the world. As for Rhodesia, it never was the breadbasket of the world, it was cheap products sold by South Africans to Europe because they had their hands on cheap labour. I get all the support I need, news are coming out that Africa can do without those white large landowners in Zimbabwe like everywhere else on the continent. After all Mike Campbell and Ben Freeth were not doing the farming, 500 Zimbabweans were farming the land that they could not own.

Christian, I'm getting a little tired of reading your "cut and paste" response, which you've made your personal mission to post on any review of this documentary that exists on the internet. "if they want to eat, then they need white farmers" - once the breadbasket of the world, now almost entriely reliant on international aid - I think the proof is in the pudding. Don't you? I always laugh when I see how little support your well rehearsed rant receives.

I am certainly no sympathizer of the Mugabe regime, not like some of Ben Freeth's family members who have been accused to financially support Mugabe. I did not say that the land would be given to the poor, read again. It does matter how and when the South African army captain acquired the land, it is at the core of the issue of land redistribution. He is trying to get back his land in any court of law that would hear him. As for being peaceful, I don't think we are talking about the same Mike Campbell, here is what he said: "If anybody comes to take my farm away it is over my dead body" "A part from me going into a coffin, a lot of you are going to go into a coffin as well"

I don't think Christian Allard is your real name; I believe you are a sympathizer of the Mugabe regime. There are many signs. What are you talking about when you say that the land would be given to the poor?!! It is obvious that the land was not to be given to the "poor" but to Mugabe friends and family. And it doesn't matter how and when Mr. Campbell"s land was acquired - he was trying to settle the dispute in a court of law, peacefully and in a civil way. It was up to the court to decide, not "thugs".

Bill, thank you for giving me the opportunity to answer your points one by one. Nobody is playing the "white supremist" card here, I am just exposing the fact that Mike Campbell purchased his estate with all its farms and its 500 workers in 1974 when a self declared white supremacist regime ruled the land. You spoke about some claptrap about taking the land back from the "colonials" who "stole" it all from poor blacks as complete rubbish, unfortunately for you Bill, Mike Campbell purchased the estate when none of the 500 people farming the land could. Then you speak about "war veterans", not in this article Bill read “a minister’s son�. Mike Campbell is no farmer but a military man, this is how he came to Rhodesia from South Africa, same for Ben’s father making your assumption that only people who have a clue to run a farm should own the land just wrong. I believe that Mike Campbell’s story and this “documentary� are not helping the white African farmers but exposing all what his wrong with large estate owners refusing to share the land with the people who have been working it for many decades and never been giving a chance to own it.

Christian Allard - Playing the "white supremist" card is getting a bit thin now. Mike Campbell purchased the land legally and built his farm from the ground up. Mugabe and his so-called "war veterans," many who were mere infants during the Rhodesian Bush War, have absolutely no right to the land that Campbell and his family tilled to grow food to feed the nation. By the way, what exactly does Campbell's previous military service, or his father's military service to Britain have to do with this situation? Absolutely nothing. In closing, I challenge anyone here to show me just five black farmers in Africa - anywhere in Africa, that can do just as well as the white farmers. Mugabe has given all the confiscated farms to his cronies - people who do not have a clue how to run a farm. Thus, the land goes fallow, farm equipment rusts out, and so far over 500,000 black farm woprkers have been made homeless and destitute. No wonder Nigeria, Mozambique, Zambia and even Congo-Brazzaville are now inviting white farmers from Zimbabwe and South Africa to develop their agricultural saector.

Mike Campbell acquired the large estate with all its farms and its 500 workers back in 1974 when a brutal white supremacist regime was running the country they called Rhodesia. I feel no sympathy for the South African army captain Mike Campbell and his British son in law Ben Freeth because I watched Freeth interviewing Campbell on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbfhrr2NyH4 Have a look and watch Campbell telling the world "if they want to eat they need to have white farmers". I watched the "documentary" they call "Mugabe and the White African" and after watching the work of Ben Freeth on youtube I come to the conclusion that the directors of the "documentary" are Ben Freeth and Mike Campbell and not Lucy Bailey and Andrew Thompson.

“Mugabe and the White African� is more than just about a “farming� family in Zimbabwe. I doubt very much if viewers would still sympathise with this family, Mike Campbell and his son-in-law, Ben Freeth after watching them online. Mike Campbell and Ben Freeth show they real colours in their own series on youtube particularly the “interview� of Mike Campbell where he tells it like he sees it “if they want to eat they need to have white farmers�: Zimbabwe White farmers (Pt 4&5) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbfhrr2NyH4 The land was grabbed by Mike Campbell, a South African army captain, who came to Zimbabwe from South Africa in 1974, in the middle of the guerrilla war against the black majority, just four years before the infamous white supremacist Ian Smith unilaterally yielded to international pressure to end white minority rule. Original Rhodesian white farmers have now all left or have complied with the land reform, Mike Campbell won’t. Ben Freeth portrays himself as a victim of racial attacks but do not say where he and his family really comes from. Ben Freeth is the son of a British Empire military officer, both are men from the past, from another century, when people like Ben and his father came straight from the British establishment to rule the world. Did the two directors Andrew Thompson and Lucy Bailey knew they were being directed by Ben Freeth and Mike Campbell, I can’t believe they are that naive.

I was very moved by this film. There are issues with land use and land rights in Zimbabwe that result from the years of Colonialism but those issues are complex and to be adressed at a national and legislative level. They are not the responsibility of the very brave farmers (Shona, Ndebele and White) victimised in this film as well as in separate incidents. The legacy of Colonial rule, longstanding inequalities not to mention a brutal civil war need to be addressed but cannot be addressed until Zimbabwe has a free and fair political process. As opposed to the thuggery and irresponsible greed it currently labours under. The majority of Black Zimbabweans are not so stupid as to be deceived by political posturing: be it our very own 'Takeaway Bob' or your 'right-on' Time Out. The overwhelming inequality between some White and some Black Africans is well known. That Dave Calhoun should have chosen to devote over a fifth of his review to stating the obvious about an extremely brave and dignified set of people is as predictable as it is disappointing.

Bill Gibbons words are chosen very carefully and truthfully to Chongolola. May I add that when Ian Smith lost his premiership to Mugabe Rhodesia was then a country to be proud of and the infrastructure he endowed to not only the farmers but also to the people was a very worthwhile and profitable country, what with tobacco and produce where they were self sufficient in many ways and exporting goods that produced a very welcome income. Since his coming into power it has gradually deteriorated into a country of poverty, yet not for him or his war veterans who plunder, kill, and rape what does not belong to them. The extremely unfortunate roll on of all of this leads me to the MDC who should now be in power when Mugabe was comprehensively defeated in the last election yet somehow managed to retain power through a collection of fixed ballots etc. He has raped the country of millions of US Dollars which he has stashed in his Swiss bank account for his retirement. The other downside to this is the tragic road that neighbours South Africa are now going down, they will not go against Mugabe because he's black, yet they know and realise that what he is doing to his citizens is totally wrong and in another 10 or 15 years they are also going to find themselves in the same sinking ship until the Dutchmen decide they've had enough and again resort to civil war. I'd have loved to have seen Chabanda being shot dead along with the other henchmen and his leader but we all know that this would only turn them into martyr's, but what can the people do to rid themselves of this tyrant, I'd say death by firing squad for all the people that have lost their lives due to this dictator. Chongolola, answer me one question, show me one African country who have made a success of majority rule and I'll show you a dictatorship where the people who put these so called leaders into power end up worse off than they ever were under colonialism.