Mr Land Grab at it again in Zimbabwe
JAMA MAJOLA | 02 October, 2011 00:57
Zimbabwe’s Minister of Home Affairs, Kembo Mohadi, who already owns vast
tracts of farmland, has been accused of gross nepotism after grabbing more
land from neighbouring resettled farmers to give to his son and nephew.
The minister, a major actor in the land-invasions drama that started in
2000, has been named in various reports as one of the high-profile multiple
farm owners in Zimbabwe.
Last year, he was accused by the Commercial Farmers’ Union of being behind
an invasion of a lodge on Benlynian Game Ranch, 46km from the South African
border.
President Robert Mugabe and most senior Zanu-PF officials have seized
numerous farms, making them Zimbabwe’s new land barons. The farms were
grabbed from white commercial farmers hounded out without compensation or
forced to work on smaller pieces of land.
In the latest dispute, Mohadi is accused of using a gun to threaten local
resettled farmers and villagers.
One of the dispossessed farmers told the Sunday Times Mohadi had seized
plots bordering Zvovhe Dam, leaving them landless and without means of
survival. “Mohadi threatened my mother with a gun. He has visited our land
many times and even shot a dog, saying he was untouchable. He will kill
people on the farm and nothing will happen to him,” he said.
Mohadi refused to comment, and police said they did not know anything about
it .
Resettled farmers in Beit Bridge, some of them war veterans and
conservationists, say they have been trying for a long time to ward off the
minister, but are losing the fight because they lack political connections.
The minister’s wife, Tambudzani, was also involved in a series of clashes
with them, and the farmers had to seek a court order against her.
The farmers have written to the Matabeleland South war veterans’ chapter,
seeking help and saying Mohadi wants to parcel out their land to his son,
Campbell, and his nephew, Danisa Muleya.
They also say Mohadi, who occupies a huge farm which he grabbed from a white
farmer, has been pushing for the seizure of their plots since 2009.
This led to the redrawing of the boundaries of the adjacent land where the
farmers have been displaced. “We know he is going to give that land to his
son and nephew,” said a farmer.