Police abduct farmer’s wife
Written by The Zimbabwean
Sunday, 30 May 2010 17:35
Shamva- Gary and Jane Sharp who had been evicted from their farm in the Shamva area won a court case last Wednesday allowing them to return to their farm and collect their belongings.
No sooner had Mrs Sharp walked out of the Court, when she was bundled into a police van and taken to Shamva Police station where she was held in the Charge office overnight. Her husband was told that if he wanted his wife free he must sign his farm over – over to who???! After intervention by their lawyer, Mrs Sharp was released without charge, on Thursday evening. Indications are that the Minister of Transport and Communications, Nicholas Goche, also MP for Shamva North, is behind this. If so, then the minister clearly sees himself as above the law. Mrs Sharp was kidnapped/abducted by the Police – kidnapping is a serious crime anywhere in the world except, it seems, in Zimbabwe. However, Goche has a long history of violence and intimidation, having led widespread beatings and killings in his constituency prior to the 2008 elections. That he was chosen for high office is one of the painful ironies of the GPA, after an election where the citizens thoroughly rejected ZanuPF at the polls.
On Friday 29 May 2010, a group of between 30 – 50 Zanu-PF youth spent the day trashing and looting the homestead of Mrs Helen Newmarch who has a small farm approx 7 kms from Marondera on the Harare road. Helen was widowed many years ago and has brought up her four children by continuing to farm on her own.
She is at this moment at Police Headquarters in Marondera. It appears that the Police are reluctant to take action. Apparently it is the usual “we can’t get involved – it is political” excuse that farmers have had to listen to for the past ten years.
By Friday at 4;30 pm, attempts by agricultural representatives to contact the co-Minister of Home Affairs Giles Mutsekwa, had failed.
The tempo of violence and threats against legitimate commercial farmers (black and white) is increasing and will in the end affect the remaining few thousand farm workers still employed on commercial farms.
It is with dismay that we note that over a year after the signing of the GPA, this criminal behaviour by self styled ‘war vets’ and the ZanuPF youth is allowed to continue with impunity.
It is obvious that the threatened violence against the MDC, Civil society and those working towards democracy and a new constitution, will follow and snowball, as promised, ‘after the World Cup’.