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They beat him, but not into submission

A white Zimbabwean defied orders to give up his farm. Soon Mugabe's men came, full of menace.

COLUMN ONE

August 07, 2008|Robyn Dixon, Times Staff Writer

As she relates the story late one afternoon in July, her husband lies quietly in bed, adding a comment here or there, but saying little.

The Mike Campbell of old seems suspended like a ghost in the golden evening light: the man who relished a controversial debate; who couldn't help dominating the conversation; who reminisced nostalgically about fighting on the side of the white Rhodesian government against the black liberation fighters and thumbed his nose at political correctness.


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That Mike Campbell told The Times last year: "Make no mistake -- a very large part of what has been going on is, the person who is on the land owns it. The moment you move off, you're finished."

He'd come from a family of "pretty resolute people." He seemed strong then, despite losses cascading like a complicated domino structure, nudged too early, before it was finished.

Campbell had achieved his life's dream, a successful tourist game farm, only to see the game killed off by poachers and the safari lodge burned to the ground.

The government had seized Bruce's farm. Campbell also had built a successful fruit export business, which the government was determined to seize. Grimly, he kept on going.

But after the attack, he seems whittled down, diminished.

Still, if Campbell's attackers hoped the farmer would be cowed into withdrawing his case, they would be disappointed.

"We never, ever had any idea of dropping the court case," Campbell says as he reclines in his hospital bed. "No matter what."

In a July hearing, his lawyers called on the tribunal to rule that the Zimbabwean government was in contempt for breaching an order that the 78 farmers should not be harassed or evicted before its judgment. In response, Mugabe's lawyers walked out of the tribunal. The case continues.

On the farm, Ginger neighs hopefully when visitors come. The staff is taking care of him and the other animals, but he misses Angela; he likes to follow her around the garden like a loyal, oversized dog.

When Angela speaks about returning to her home, she is a little vague. "Our future is really very blank," she says. "We have no idea of the future of Zimbabwe."

But put the same question to Mike Campbell, and he snaps back into his lifetime habit of grim determination. He shrugs off his shrunken self like a coat he's outgrown.

"We'll go back to the farm as soon as we can, as soon as our health allows us to," he says. "If you can give an attribute to the African person, one of the things he respects is not giving up."

After the attack, the Campbells spent just over five weeks in Harare, recovering. Today, they are going back home, to Ginger and their dogs and cats, their flower-filled garden and their farm.

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robyn.dixon@latimes.com

Last year, Dixon wrote about the Campbells and the fight for their farm. To read that article, go to latimes.com/world.

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