2006年VOA标准英语-Zimbabwe Begins Nationalizing Privately-Ow

By Peta Thornycroft
Harare
27 January 2006

Six years after instituting a policy of nationalizing white-owned farms and evicting² their owners, Zimbabwe's government has begun to seize white-owned land in urban Harare.

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe   
  
Some 200 workers were rounded up by police and forced out of their homes last week. The workers lived and were employed on Gletwyn, a large property in the midst of several wealthy suburbs, 14 kilometers east of the city center.  Many of them had lived there all their lives.

Gletwyn is an old farm, incorporated into the city of Harare in 1996. The owners, two brothers, planned to subdivide³ the land into a new suburb, but would continue to grow specialist crops, such as corn seed.

Police arrived before Christmas and said they were going to build houses for themselves on Gletwyn. Ian Ross, 68, said the police started harassing⁴ and evicting hundreds of workers from their homes. 

"They arrived to evict¹ the workers, which they did piece by piece, village by village, compound by compound. They were loaded onto police trucks in the rain, which most of the time arrived without fuel," he said.  "They forced workers to buy fuel for them.  They took them to various parts of the country.  They were basically dumped, they lost all their furniture, saturated⁵ in the rain, but within days they all started to come back with a reed mat, a couple of blankets, a pot.  They came back to work, but were hounded day and night.  They moved into sheds, where they could sleep.  The guys moved in to chicken runs; they were living like rabbits, like little rats in a hole."

Ross, one of the owners of Gletwyn, went to court this week to try and stop the police action against the workers.

Mac Tembo, 46, is a workshop manager who has worked at Gletwyn for 25 years.  He says he was sent back to his rural home, Nyampanda on the border with Mozambique, but returned days later.  "I want to work," he said.  "I have got more problems.  I want to sort my problems.  I [have] got children [who] go to school, and we haven't got food at Nyamapanda.  If Mr. Ross goes, myself, I will go to Nyamapanda.  If Mr. Ross is here, I myself will be here."

Tembo says he was kidnapped by state security agents Tuesday and taken to Harare central police station to answer questions about stolen and destroyed agricultural equipment, which he said was taken by thieves roaming the land.

A property firm with ties to the government, Divine Homes, also says it has rights to Gletwyn. It is marketing⁶ 600 units on behalf of the government, arguing that Gletwyn is public property as it is a white-owned farm.

A Divine Homes company official said this week there were no title deeds available for the units, but that this will "sort itself out over time."

Deputy Finance Minister David Chapfkika is listed as chairman of the company. He was not available for comment this week, nor were ministers in charge of land affairs or local government.

Earthmovers operate at Gletwyn daily, chewing up fields with huge graders and bulldozers, destroying borehole pumps, pipes and water reservoirs, laying down crude, muddy roads, in no apparent order.

Last week they bulldozed workers' homes, cooking huts and thatched sheds workers built to store possessions.

Gletwyn is urban land and was exempt⁷ from nationalization until 2002, when the law was changed to allow the government to take any land, not just white-owned farmland.

John Worsley-Worswick heads the advocacy group, Justice for Agriculture. He says the ruling ZANU-PF party has nearly finished taking all white-owned farms and so now has had to move to urban areas. He says Gletwyn was an obvious target, as it is well developed.

"It's the first full wholesale⁸ attack on a huge tract⁹ of land that is already in the city limits, it goes beyond chaos¹⁰.  It's not a default anarchy¹¹, it's by design," he said.  "The party have designed this anarchy to be exactly what it is today."          

Ian Ross went to court again Friday, seeking an order restraining police from further intimidating¹² or evicting workers on Gletwyn.   He says the application succeeded but he adds he is not at all certain he will be able to remain at his home.

1 evict   

vt.驱逐，赶出，撵走

参考例句：

• The lessor can evict the lessee for failure to pay rent.出租人可驱逐不付租金的承租人。
• The government always says it's for the greater good when they evict farmers from their land.当政府把农民从他们的土地赶出去的时候，总是号称是为了更大众的利益。

2 evicting   

v.（依法从房屋里或土地上）驱逐，赶出( evict的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Money spent on evicting sex offenders cannot be spent on treating them. 花在打击性侵犯者上的钱并不能花在治疗这一社会问题上。 来自互联网
• Money spent on evicting sex offenders cannot be spent on treating them. Does this matter? 钱被花费在驱逐性犯罪者而不是用做教育他们，这样做真的好么？ 来自互联网

3 subdivide   

vt.细分（细区分，再划分，重分，叠分，分小类）

参考例句：

• You can use sales organizations to subdivide markets into regions.用销售组织将市场细分为区域。
• The verbs were subdivided into transitive and intransitive categories.动词可细分为及物动词和不及物动词。

4 harassing   

v.侵扰，骚扰( harass的现在分词 )；不断攻击（敌人）

参考例句：

• The court ordered him to stop harassing his ex-wife. 法庭命令他不得再骚扰前妻。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• It was too close to be merely harassing fire. 打得这么近，不能完全是扰乱射击。 来自辞典例句

5 saturated   

a.饱和的，充满的

参考例句：

• The continuous rain had saturated the soil. 连绵不断的雨把土地淋了个透。
• a saturated solution of sodium chloride 氯化钠饱和溶液

6 marketing   

n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西

参考例句：

• They are developing marketing network.他们正在发展销售网络。
• He often goes marketing.他经常去市场做生意。

7 exempt   

adj.免除的；v.使免除；n.免税者，被免除义务者

参考例句：

• These goods are exempt from customs duties.这些货物免征关税。
• He is exempt from punishment about this thing.关于此事对他已免于处分。

8 wholesale   

n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售

参考例句：

• The retail dealer buys at wholesale and sells at retail.零售商批发购进货物，以零售价卖出。
• Such shoes usually wholesale for much less.这种鞋批发出售通常要便宜得多。

9 tract   

n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林)

参考例句：

• He owns a large tract of forest.他拥有一大片森林。
• He wrote a tract on this subject.他曾对此写了一篇短文。

10 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

11 anarchy   

n.无政府状态；社会秩序混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• There would be anarchy if we had no police.要是没有警察，社会就会无法无天。
• The country was thrown into a state of anarchy.这国家那时一下子陷入无政府状态。

12 intimidating   

vt.恐吓，威胁( intimidate的现在分词)

参考例句：

• They were accused of intimidating people into voting for them. 他们被控胁迫选民投他们的票。
• This kind of questioning can be very intimidating to children. 这种问话的方式可能让孩子们非常害怕。