War vets call for Mudenge’s arrest
By Energy Bara
Friday, 17 September 2010 09:34
MASVINGO – Higher and Tertiary Education minister Stan Mudenge should be
arrested and prosecuted for illegally invading Chikore farm, a Masvingo
magistrate heard Wednesday.
This was said during the trial of 35 war veterans and Zanu PF supporters,
who are being charged with illegally settling on a gazetted piece of land
allegedly owned by Mudenge.
The accused persons stunned the court when they said that the minister
should be arrested since he is the one who settled illegally on the
property.
“We do not know why you are prosecuting us,” the accused persons told the
court. “Mudenge should be arrested immediately since he came and invaded the
farm in which we were allocated land by the government.”
“Your worship the land belongs to us and we are surprised why we were
arrested instead of arresting the cabinet minister,” the defendants said.
The group was remanded out of custody till September 20, when trial resumes.
The group also told the court that they were being harassed by members of
the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) and have resorted to sleeping in
the bush, and mountains as they fear for their lives.
“Some of us are no longer sleeping in our houses as we run away from members
of the CIO who normally come at night to harass us,” they said.
“Some of us have been sleeping in the bush and mountains since 2008 as we
fear that we might disappear during the night because members of the CIO
have threatened to kill us while we are asleep”.
The state further alleges that the group had no right to settle on the
property since they do not have offers letters.
Mudenge, embroiled in the farm ownership wrangle since he claims ”ownership
of the property”, has been for the past fours years unsuccessfully tried to
evict the former freedom fighters.
In the meantime, the ex-combatants plead not guilty when they appeared
before Masvingo magistrate Oliver Mudzongachiso.
During the height of farm invasions, Mudenge ganged up with the war veterans
to evict Robert Buchan, a former white commercial farmer .
A few days after successfully chasing away Buchan, Mudenge changed his mind
and later sought to evict the war veterans and Zanu Pf supporters from the
farm.
Chikore farm used to produce vegetables, tomatoes , maize and wheat among
other things. In addition the farm used to produce flowers for export.
The flowers were being produced under the green house effect principle.
In May, Mudenge allegedly hired Zanu-PF youths to evict the ex-fighters from
the farm.