It’s Friday afternoon, November 18 2005 on my farm at Chiredzi. At 3.15pm it’s still sweltering. That is why it is such a good place to grow sugar cane. I am alerted by the dogs barking. Filled with dread, I just know it’s the police/army group, which grandly calls itself the ”Farm Material and Equipment Procurement Committee”, which has seized farming equipment in the run-up to the festive season.
I thought we had done enough legally to stop them taking ours. A few minutes pass. My hands grow clammy, my thoughts race to the violence of 2003: I had been assaulted by war veterans; was hijacked by land grabbers; arrested at gunpoint by the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP). The police had not protected me then and now they were about to ransack me. On a similar Friday afternoon in 2003, my yard had swarmed with war vets and I had to run into the sugar cane fields to escape them. What now?!
My clerk buzzed. Yes, the police and army are here. They are inside the security fence. They want to see me. Now.
In the previous fortnight, six of my fellow farmers in Hippo Valley, two of whom are neighbours, had almost all their equipment plundered by this committee. Tractors, cane haulage trailers, centre pivots, irrigation pipes, pumps, motors, implements and all sorts of other items were loaded on to police trucks by an enormous army mobile crane and by numerous convicts drafted from the local prison. Everything was ferried to Chiredzi police station and stashed to be plundered later.
No documents
Now it looks as if it is my turn to be cleaned out, for no other reason, it later transpired, than for the looters to enrich themselves. No ideology here!
Police, soldiers, government land officials and war vets wait for me at the workshop. Perhaps 20 or more, some armed, all glowering.
Do I see anger? Hatred? Contempt? It is an admixture with more than a hint of triumph, as if they have finally caught up with an escaped criminal.
ZRP Assistant Commissioner Loveness Ndanga, head of the ”procurement committee”, introduces herself. She informs me she and her crew have come to collect all the equipment they had inventoried (illegally, by the way!) in May. Everyone has moved closer and I find myself surrounded by this hostile throng. I have to be calm, cautious. I politely ask whether she has the necessary documentation to remove the equipment and is she going to pay me for it first? ”No documents”, she replies. She is following her ”chain of command”, and the ”nitty-gritties could be sorted out” at the police station ”later”.
Ndanga asks whether I have any objections. I would prefer to see proper procedure and first get the documentation, I tell her. She insists she will instead be collecting the equipment immediately. Was I about to stop them loading, she asked threateningly.
I reply that she has armed police, soldiers and others by her side. Being unarmed and outnumbered 20 to one, I am physically unlikely to prevent her from loading my possessions. I express concern, though, that she, as a law-enforcement officer, was taking the law into her own hands. Ndanga’s only acknowledgement is to demand the keys to the tractors so that her crew could start removing machinery while we continue to talk.
I appeal to her to delay her actions for three more days until the matter, which had been set down, could be heard in the high court. In response, she turns her back and ignores me.
Sick to my stomach
I thought that the knowledge and sight of this self-same committee looting my neighbours during the previous two weeks would have conditioned me as to what to expect. Instead, I am sick to my stomach. That menacing, monster crane, as high as a howitzer, growls into action, their lorries ease into position. The disgraceful spectacle of government agents, bureaucrats and members of the armed forces plundering my equipment is almost too disgusting for me to behold. My mechanic, clerk, security guard, garden staff, have lined themselves along the fence, folding their arms tightly against their bodies. They are visibly stunned, embarrassed, helpless. One is silently weeping.
As I watch, I think to myself, what cynical solution is this to solving the country’s food shortages? In which nation on Earth is it part of the culture to behave in this manner? And then get away with it with no one to disapprove it? Am I observing state-sponsored theft? How deeply ingrained is it? If the civil service has sunk so low, how will Zimbabwe ever extricate herself from the morass?
While my thoughts race, I am not hostile at all. What, indeed, can I do? They start to relax and I am able to use the new mood and record the event on video once more.
I feel like Alice in Wonderland. Unless you were actually witnessing it, who would actually believe this could happen in modern society? Whereas there is a Constitution giving me a chance to uphold my rights and although I have won every case in court, the realities on the ground make me dance to an awful tune.
As I film their scowling faces, they kept their voices low, while they load the tools of my trade. They seem slightly ashamed. The years of abuse by officialdom, and my deep Christian faith, have inured me.
Hours later, the loaders regain their confidence and overcome their embarrassment. They become more vociferous, shouting instructions to each other. The next day when they return, they are more eager about the task. My best tractor, the most valuable one, the one they use to help the others remove my assets, is less happy. It now has a whine in the gearbox, a noise in the differential. I fret they must be using it at high speed in four-wheel drive.
Nobody wins
The police tire of their task. They seem sated. They have removed enough to cripple any efforts I have in mind to continue farming or contracting. We repair to the police station to discuss the ”nitty- gritties” Ndanga talked of. I am met by a phalanx of police officers, sneering at me when I enter the room. I know this tactic. I have seen it often enough. It’s meant to intimidate, to obstruct. The meeting lasts but a few minutes. They march out en masse, protesting that I have raised ”a land issue”.
Our guardians the police have failed us. They have abandoned their moral and lawful duty. When we see them on the beat, we do not see a friendly ”Bobby” upholding our safety. We see a betrayal of what is right. They are systematically taking away our livelihood, dividing and distributing what already exists to those who cannot use it. In the end, there are only losers.
Sequel
The High Court in Harare granted us a provisional order on November 21 2005 — two days after the seizures, compelling the Zimbabwe Republic Police to return all our equipment immediately. The final order was made by the high court on December 2 last year. Nothing has been returned. The police distributed the equipment among themselves and party hacks. They have removed it out of Chiredzi and are now in contempt of court.
Government Lands Officer Mukonyora arrived at the yard gate on January 6. Imperiously waiving a sheet of paper, he demanded entry in order to seize the premises including the workshops, and to hand our homestead over to a Miss Matsvayi, a ”favoured new lady-farmer”. Would it be reprisal? The brave security guard sent them packing.