African Tears – The Zimbabwe Land Invasions –

“African tears: The Zimbabwean Land Invasion, was Catherine Buckle’s first book about the devastation of Zimbabwe’s farming sector.

In it, she describes how in 1990 she and her husband became the proud owners of Stow Farm, with the approval of the Zanu-PF government. They borrowed money at high interest rates to turn the farm into a viable financial enterprise and within seven years they had paid off the loan and were free of debt.

But on 28 February 2000, a mob of men claiming to be veterans of the 1980 War for Independence arrived at their farm gate. The so-called ‘war vets’ claimed that the farm and everything on it was now their property, and that they had come to take back what had been stolen from their ancestors.

African tears is Cathy’s horrifying account of what then transpired. It is the story of her family’s experiences and describes the horror of their home, livelihood and investment taken away from them. …”