Chegutu farm burned down by land invaders
By Alex Bell
16 September 2010
A farmer in Chegutu has become the latest victim of the continued onslaught
against the commercial farming community, after her property was burned down
by land invaders this week.
Catherine Jouineau-Meredith’s Twyford Farm was burned to cinders on Tuesday
by the ZANU PF senator who has led violent attacks on the property since
last year. Senator Jamaya Muduvuri moved on to the property in March after
successfully evicting Jouineau-Meredith, who was ordered to leave the farm
and fined US$200 for occupying it “illegally”.
As a French citizen Jouineau-Meredith is meant to be protected by a
bilateral investment protection agreement, signed between France and
Zimbabwe. But this BIPPA, like others meant to protect foreign owned land in
Zimbabwe, has been completely ignored. Jouineau-Meredith also has a High
Court order from 2007 that recognised her rights to the farm. But again, the
total disregard for the rule of law in Zimbabwe means the court order has
offered no protection against illegal land invasions.
Senator Muduvuri has already looted the once productive farm of all its
crops and equipment and Jouineau-Meredith wrote this week that the fire was
the final end of Muduvuri “gutting” the property. She wrote; “It has taken
one year for my profitable farm to become a totally abandoned land where no
crop has been planted and the home has been destroyed.”
Muduvuri already owns Shiloh Farm near Kadoma, Mandalay and Brunswick farms
near Chegutu, and Hoffmarie Farm in Kadoma, clearly demonstrating that the
land grab has nothing to do with ‘land reform’. Twyford farm is now the
fifth property that he has grabbed to add to his collection of unproductive
pieces of land.
Twyford Farm was visited by Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara last year
when he went on a tour to verify widespread reports of renewed farm
invasions. The deputy Prime Minister’s delegation, which included the two
Home Affairs Ministers Giles Mutsekwa and Kembo Mohadi; Herbert Murerwa, and
the Minister of Lands and Land Resettlement, sternly warned Muduvuri to stop
harassing Jouineau-Meredith or attempting to take over her farm.
The delegation, which also included the French deputy ambassador Stephane
Toulet, also told Muduvuri to stop interfering with her farming activities,
stop entering the farm or her house, using her farming equipment or selling
her farm produce. Muduvuri assured the deputy Prime Minister that he would
stop interfering with Jouineau-Meredith’s farming activities, but clearly
his promises were as empty as the unity government’s promise to protect
farmers.
“My continuous efforts towards the Prime Minister’s office have been filled
with empty promises and no action,” Jouineau-Meredith wrote this week. “What
happened on my farm has NOTHING to do with any kind of land reform.”
The incident happened the day before the two year anniversary of the signing
of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) which included the promise of
security for all land owners. The MDC, as partners in the coalition
government, have come under pressure to use their position to make sure this
happened, but nothing has changed.
The party itself commemorated the signing of the GPA with a statement,
expressing “concern and dissatisfaction with the deliberate delays by ZANU
PF in fulfilling its commitments to the agreement.” The party said that
“Robert Mugabe and ZANU PF have shown their dishonesty through the refusal
to accept certain key aspects of the GPA. Our position remains unchanged. We
demand the resolution of all outstanding issues.”
This is the same statement the MDC has made repeatedly during its time in
government, and patience is beginning to wear thin with the party for not
doing or saying more. There have been no statements about ongoing land
invasions in recent months or even about ongoing reports of violence marring
the constitutional outreach process. Critics have argued that the MDC now
needs to be much more public about their discontent and make it clear what
plans they have for Zimbabwe’s political future.