Zanu-PF bigwigs are at loggerheads over the eviction of more than 400 families, including war veterans, from 22 farms they occupied during the land grabs that accompanied Zimbabwe’s last parliamentary elections.
The evictions are taking place under the command of deputy police commissioner Godwin Matanga. Police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena said the people ”illegally settled themselves” on the farms and the government was now ”regularising the land reform”.
”It’s an insult to 14-million Zimbabweans,” said war veterans leader Jabulani Sibanda. ”Top government officials own more than one farm. Why target people sharing a farm? That logic alone is an insult. These are simply people who moved from dry land where they were settled by Rhodesians to where the new Zimbabwe laws enabled them to exist,” said Sibanda.
The war veterans are furious that the ”settlers” have been evicted without notice and have urged President Robert Mugabe to put a stop to it.
Writing in the state-run Sunday Mail Lowani Ndlovu, widely believed to be the pseudonym of Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, described the evictions as a ”violation of government policy”.
”They raise more legal policy questions than they provide answers … They have been callous and unlawful. It smacks of the Rhodesian premier Ian Smith’s eviction of blacks. The wrong way of doing the right thing is not just unacceptable, but also dangerous,” Ndlovu fumed.
But Land Reform Minister John Nkomo is adamant that the move is in line with guidelines and procedures of a commission set up to investigate progress on land reform. He said Mugabe had appointed 12 people to conduct a land audit in May, which produced the Utete report detailing irregularities in land redistribution and its impact on commercial farmers and workers.
Constitutional law lecturer Dr Lovemore Madhuku doubts that proper legal process was followed. ”It shows Zanu-PF is confused. It is a momentary lapse of strategy.”
Without food and shelter, the settlers have resorted to squatting in the open veld along the Harare-Kariba highway where they are at the mercy of the rain and chilly evening temperatures.
Burnt-out huts, broken pots, empty cattle pens and deserted fields are all that are left at Inkomo farm about 50km northwest of Harare and it is about 60km from Raffingora farm recently allocated to Harare mayor Sekesai Makwavarara after she defected from the Movement for Democratic Change.
When the Mail & Guardian visited the settlers temporary home one woman could not hold back her tears as she explained that all they wanted now was food. Another elderly woman was pounding maize and praying that the rains wouldn’t destroy the little they had left.
Rumour has it that a top government official was moving in with his cattle.
Another farm dweller, Wilbert Chimbudzi, believed the settlers had been ”stabbed in the back”. His two huts were torched leaving his family vulnerable. ”We have been left with nothing. Nothing,” he said. ”We were never given time to prepare. It was so inhumane and we don’t know why we are being made to suffer when in the first place it was the government that encouraged us to invade farms.”