The silent forced eviction of resettled farmers in Zimbabwe

23 November 2013

By Henry Matewu, Nehanda Radio

MBERENGWA – Clutching her home-made hoe, her baby strapped on her back as she tills a small piece of land near her pole and dagga hut, which is her only home, 42-year-old Margaret Chirinda says she regrets the day she abandoned her original home at the height of Zimbabwe’s land reform program in 2000.

The silent forced eviction of resettled farmers in Zimbabwe

And apparently, Zimbabwe’s land reform program appears to be a damp squib, according to hordes of resettled farmers nationwide, particularly in Midlands Province’s Mberengwa district.

The resettled farmers say government is evicting them from the farms they seized with the sole excuse that new farmers failed to fully utilise the land. But some of the resettled farmers say the Zanu-PF government accuses them of fronting evicted white farmers.

For Chirinda who hails from Mberengwa district in Mnene area, fortune has never favoured her since the day she stepped on one of the seized farms.

“At this farm, people have already been served with eviction notices from the Ministry of Lands; we have been told that we are not effectively utilising the land and therefore we must pave way for others,” Chirinda said.

Scores of resettled farmers interviewed by this reporter around Mberengwa say the evictions are paving way for government officials and ruling party stalwarts.

Other reports from Masvingo’s Windcrest farm say over 1,000 resettled farmers’ homes were recently torched during evictions, paving way for an official in the foreign affairs ministry without alternative accommodation for evicted farmers.

The evictions have grown nasty to such an extent that in mid-August, the government reportedly ordered 1,000 resettled farmers off Little England Farm in Zvimba, home to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

According to the Ministry of Lands, the Zimbabwean government has so far reclaimed over 1,449 A2 farms – the category for commercial production, which follows a land audit conducted in 2007 to 2010.

“The occupied farms were not being used productively; that is why government resolved to repossess the farms paving way for more determined indigenous farmers,” Agriculture Minister, Joseph Made said.

But the resettled farmers say they had no inputs to facilitate their ventures and therefore they are not to blame for their failures.

“We don’t have agricultural inputs to carry out our activities and surely we were motivated by the government’s promises to support our activities since 2000, but no help has been forthcoming since then,” said Richard Tirivangani, a local farmers’ chairperson in Mberengwa’s Mnene area.

“We had long abandoned our former homes over 10 years ago and really we have nowhere to go faced with these evictions,” Tirivangani added.

But rights groups here blame the ruling Zanu-PF government of inhumanely “spitting out” the people that backed the party in its land reform push since 2000.

“Where does government want resettled farmers to go? They gave them those farms; now they are chasing them, an outright violation of the poor farmers’ rights,” said Owen Dliwayo, programme officer for the Youth Dialogue Action Network, a local democracy lobby group.

A visit by this reporter to resettlement areas around Mberengwa in Mnene area revealed that over 950 people that had invaded farms there were readying themselves to leave, returning to their original homes, with a significant number however uncertain about their future.

But agricultural officers say the new farmers here knew they were not permanently on the farms.

“Initially, these farmers were told by government that they should not build permanent structures on the occupied farms, an indication that they were going to be there temporarily; so I see no reason why they should become cry-babies now,” said Tinotenda Ticharwa, an agricultural officer based in Mberengwa.

Political analysts say Zimbabwe’s land saga has always been tainted with corruption.

“The land issue here is ridden with corruption and farms evictees are victims of a corrupt political system; revisit those same farms after a year or so; you will find some powerful people occupying them because they are politically connected,” said independent political analyst, Malvern Tigere.

“The story of evictions unravels the nullity of Zimbabwe’s land reform program, which instead of being a genuine economic empowerment drive, has been used to the expediency of politicians,” Tigere added.

For Claris Madhuku, who is director for Platform for Youth Development here, this Southern African nation’s land reform program was initially meant to become a lifeline to the poor peasants mostly in the countryside.

“Zimbabwe’s fast-track land reform programme was meant to benefit landless people forced to live in congested communal areas, and if the same land portions are now being taken from them, then who becomes the better devil between our black government and our former colonisers?” Madhuku queried.

The Dorset resettlement area, 40 km south of the Midlands capital of Gweru, is an example of the shortcomings of Zimbabwe’s rushed land redistribution programme, which was ostensibly meant to reverse the legacy of a century of colonial land ownership imbalances.

And like many other resettled farmers as Chirinda, hordes of farmers at Dorset are ready to leave, but they have lost their destinations, which used to be their homes over a decade ago before they became part of the government’s commercial land seizures foot soldiers.

“We are going, but we don’t know where exactly because government says we have failed it by not fully utilising this land,” said a middle-aged farmer, only identified as Handa.

Irked by the evictions, headmen like Trynos Mushuku from Zimbabwe’s Midlands Province’s Chachacha area said: “We were relieved when some of our sons went to the resettlement areas, but now that they are returning, we will have fresh headaches of how to accommodate them.”

Economists here say the government’s drive to evict resettled farmers indicate an economically straying regime.

“The Zanu-PF government by evicting the same people it allowed to move into the white owned farms over 10 years ago are indicators of a government economically straying after it purported to economically empower its people,” said independent economist, Kingston Nyakurukwa.

But a Zanu-PF politician, Flora Buka in 2012 headed a land audit team whose findings unearthed gross violations of the “one man, one farm” principle.

https://nehandaradio.com/2013/11/23/the-silent-forced-eviction-of-resettled-farmers-in-zimbabwe/

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