Mazoe Families Evicted To Pave Way For The Mugabes
Mazowe, February 07, 2012 – Zimbabwean police on Monday evicted some new
farmers in Mazowe in Mashonaland Central province to pave way for the
expansion of some farming activities for the country’s first family, the
Mugabe’s.
Informed sources told Radio VOP that several families were evicted by armed
police from their farming plots which they were allocated under the chaotic
land reform programme. The new farmers and their families were evicted from
Arnold farm and Mbuya Nehanda farm in Manzou area in Mazowe, about 20
kilometres outside Harare.
Police armed with truncheons and dogs evicted the new farmers and dumped
them in Concession in the same province to allow President Robert Mugabe and
his wife Grace and their family to set up a game
park and a cattle breeding project at the two farms.
However, the new farmers are reportedly resisting the evictions and some of
them indicated that they were not willing to relocate to Concession because
of the poor soils at the farm where they are being moved to.
The families have also protested at the timing of the evictions which come
at a time when their crops are reaching ripening stage.
This is not the first time that the Mugabe’s have been accused of evicting
new farmers from their plots.
In 2009, some families were ordered to vacate a farm in the rich Mazowe
farming area to make way for the expansion of the first family’s orphanage.
The Mugabe’s have been linked to several farms in the country that were
grabbed from white commercial farmers during the chaotic land reform
programme. In 2008, High Court Judge Justice Ben Hlatshwayo lost a farm to
the Mugabe’s whose firm Gushungo Holdings seized a farm which had been
occupied by the former university lecturer.