Mliswa exposes Zanu PF’s worst fear
Saturday, 13 November 2010 19:46
WHEN Temba Mliswa was arrested earlier this year it was expected that his case would bring to the fore the massive looting of commercial farms by senior Zanu-PF members, but these expectations have all but crumbled in spectacular fashion.
In his initial appearances in court, the controversial business man dramatically revealed that some of the generators he had allegedly looted had been sold to army commander Constantine Chiwenga and Zanu PF Member of Parliament for Goromonzi North Paddy Zhanda. He also alleged he had sold a third to Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri.
Deepening the mystery was the fact that once Mliswa had been arrested ministers Didymus Mutasa and Theresa Makone launched an unprecedented search for him, eventually finding him at Matapi police station. The two ministers were accused of trying to defeat the course of justice although no charges were brought against them.
Expectations were that this was the beginning of a domino effect where more Zanu PF bigwigs and securocrats would start being named and would fall on their swords, but this has been far from it: the case has all but fizzled out into an anti-climax.
Mliswa was accused of looting from white commercial farmers and amassing a lot of wealth in the process.
Along with thousands of other besieged farmers across Zimbabwe, Mike Jahme should have been closely watching the trial of the Zanu PF-linked businessman accused of stealing and selling US$50-million of farm equipment.
Recently Jahme’s tea and avocado farm in eastern Zimbabwe was overrun by gangs loyal to a local government official, who carried off some of his equipment.
With a bit of luck, the Mliswa case was going to open a Pandora’s Box and maybe stem the violent looting on white owned farms.
As a consequence of Zimbabwe’s “land reform” programme, many displaced farmers have been forced to flee with nothing more than the clothes on their backs, leaving behind infrastructure accumulated over generations.
Farmers, hopeful of a change of policy, were hoping the Mliswa trial would trigger a wider probe into how thousands of farms were looted. But the trial has all the hallmarks of an internal Zanu-PF dogfight.
Mliswa’s troubles began when he allegedly tried to grab a controlling shareholding in a Harare company under the guise of empowerment laws. But the country’s top cop, Chihuri, a powerful ally of President Robert Mugabe, reportedly had interests in the firm too.
Days later, Mliswa found himself facing a litany of charges, dating back many years, detailing how he had led the looting of farms.
It was hoped that his trial would become a goldmine of details about how Zanu-PF officials, under the cover of land reform, systematically stripped farms of assets that they either sold for profit or carried off to their own farms.
In court, Mliswa revealed he had sold some of the equipment to the police commissioner himself, and to other prominent figures, among them Chiwenga. The trial coincided with what many regarded as a purely pyrrhic victory for white farmers, with no practical implications for Zimbabwe, at the Southern
African Development Community Tribunal in Namibia.
Recently, the tribunal ruled for a third time, that the Zimbabwe government is in defiance of a court order that protects white farmers.
Zimbabwe’s Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa commented on the ruling saying the court actions would give the farmers “propaganda” victories, but would do nothing to recover their farms.
Charles Taffs of Zimbabwe’s Commercial Farmers’ Union, which represents mainly white farmers, said: “What we have witnessed over the past 10 years is that beneficiaries [of land seizures] have come on to farms and asset-stripped them, leaving absolutely nothing.”
Mugabe has always cloaked land reforms in struggle dogma, arguing takeovers were meant to end a century of white control of the country’s best land. But the exercise has long been taken over by criminal gangs, many of them tied to top officials, who move from farm to farm ransacking houses and looting equipment.
The latest victims were the Jahmes, whose Silverstone Estate had 65 hectares under tea and 22 000 avocado trees. Youths recently invaded the farm, assaulted the owners and made off with equipment.
“While we were barricaded in the main office we could hear the sounds of breaking wood and glass and general vandalism going on around the house and outbuildings,” Jahme said after the attack.
He had been due to export 250 tonnes of avocados to South Africa’s Westfalia.
The Mliswa trial has shown the contrast between the dire impact the land seizures have had on the economy, and the easy millions made by a select few.
Farm lootings have a long history and are endemic to Zanu PF’s warped empowerment programmes. Last year, an official report named five of Mugabe’s ministers as having looted assets from the Kondozi Estate, once one of Zimbabwe’s largest fresh-produce exporters. No action was taken.
Mutasa, who was prominent in the Mliswa case, together with four other ministers were fingered in the looting of Kondozi, with the Attorney-General ordering them to return what they had allegedly stolen.
Mutasa, then National Security minister, Joseph Made (Agriculture), Christopher Mushohwe then Transport minister, former Water Infrastructure Development minister Munacho Mutezo and former Manicaland governor Mike Nyambuya were last year accused of looting Kondozi.
Kondozi, a once-thriving horticultural concern in Manicaland, now lies in ruins after most of the equipment was removed, paralysing operations.
The looted equipment includes 48 tractors, four Scania trucks, five UD trucks, several T35 trucks and 26 motorbikes. Several tonnes of fertilisers and chemicals were also lost.
Theresa Makone, upon her appointment to the Home Affairs portfolio as co-minister said she would instruct police to prosecute alleged Zanu PF looters, saying she had an incriminating dossier with her.
Examples from the dossier reportedly show how other Zanu PF big wigs had no regard for the rule of law, wantonly defying court orders.
Brigadier Justin Itayi Mujaji reportedly has ignored six High Court orders to vacate Korori Farm in Rusape.
He also ignored a letter from the then Manicaland governor Tinaye Chigudu, reminding him that the late Vice-President Joseph Msika had endorsed Charles Lock’s stay on the farm. Mujaji had used national army soldiers to physically evict Lock from the farm and police have said they are powerless
to enforce court orders, including a warrant of arrest, on the brigadier.
A Harare lawyer David Drury said he was dealing with more than 600 cases involving white farmers who lost property to Zanu PF officials and army generals.
Commenting on the Mliswa case Drury was cautiously optimistic saying “my first reaction is that miracles happen. It’s taken 10 years for somebody to bring to account the looting. It remains to be seen whether the development bears any fruition into court prosecution in regard to these individuals.”
Drury said he doubted the dossier which the Home Affairs co-minister had was a complete record of all the looting that had gone on saying it was “just a tip of the iceberg. The amount of looting over 10 years is enormous.” Drury’s clients were victims of Mliswa’s alleged looting but he said the case was
dropped four years ago.
“I got a call from a policeman saying could I dig up my dusty file from my office and I said sure,” Drury is reported to have said at the onset of Mliswa’s trial.
Commercial Farmers Union president David Theron, gave some examples of the looting that took place on white owned farms.
Major-General Nicholas Dube, who allegedly looted property from Chipinge farmers Michael Odendaal and Michael Jahme and also allegedly harassed Paul Stibulph in Karoi.
Stibulph allegedly lost farm equipment, tobacco and soya bean crop worth US$900 000 to Dube.
While the Mliswa case was expected to rock the boat and trigger prosecutions into farm looting, this expectation and interest in the case is fast fading.
Nqaba Matshazi