Stand-off Continues Between Masvingo Farm Invaders and Zimbabwe Police

Stand-off Continues Between Masvingo Farm Invaders and Zimbabwe Police

http://www.voanews.com

28 September 2011

A shortage of sugar looms because some invaded farms are sugar-cane 
plantations in the national sugar-producing region of Chiredzi

Chris Gande

Some 5,000 families in Zimbabwe's southeast province of Masvingo have 
invaded farms and wildlife conservancies, among them thousands of members of 
an apostolic sect, and refused to budge despite pressure from police and the 
national Land Inspectorate.

A recent visit to Chiredzi by Land Inspectorate officials, led by Deputy 
Commissioner of Police Godwin Matanga, failed to convince the invaders to 
move off the properties – most of which are sugar cane plantations in the 
tropical lowveld part of Zimbabwe.

Chiredzi West lawmaker Moses Mare told VOA reporter Chris Gande the farm 
invasions have reduced national sugar production by more than 70 percent.

Edward Mkhosi, a member of the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee 
set up to track compliance by Zimbabwe political parties with the 2008 
Global Political Agreement for power sharing, said JOMIC has urged an 
immediate end to such invasions.

There were 4,000 mainly white-owned commercial farms in Zimbabwe when 
President Robert Mugabe launched a disorderly and often violent land reform 
program that most observers say devastated the country's agricultural 
sector. Today there are a few hundred white-owned commercial farms, many of 
them still under pressure from invaders.