Police use teargas to disperse angry Chisumbanje villagers
By Tichaona Sibanda
09 January 2013
It has emerged that police in Chisumbanje last week fired shots into the air
and used teargas to disperse angry villagers demanding their land back from
Macdom, the company running the Ethanol plant.
Two brothers, Jameson and Samson Mlambo, were arrested following the
disturbances after police identified them as the ringleaders. They’ve been
in police cells for over a week now.
The MP for Chipinge South, Meki Makuyana, said the situation in Chisumbanje
needs an urgent dialogue between warring villagers and management from
Macdom before ‘the situation deteriorates further.’
The latest standoff was triggered last week when villagers went back to
their land to till following the start of the rainy season. This followed an
agreement reached in December last year between Macdom and a cabinet
committee, appointed to resolve the land row, that allowed the farmers to
work on their land until an agreement is reached over the dispute.
But when the farmers returned to their land, they were chased away by the
police, prompting this latest spat between the villagers and Macdom.
Makuyana told SW Radio Africa’s Hidden Story program on Wednesday that the
situation is still highly volatile in Chisumbanje and government needs to
move fast to avert a potentially ‘deadly’ confrontation between the farmers
and the police.
‘We have a situation where Macdom have enlisted the help and protection of
the police who are apparently using unnecessary heavy handed methods of
keeping the farmers away from the land in dispute,’ Makuyana said.
He added: ‘As I speak to you right now, there is a high presence of police
details in Chisumbanje patrolling the farming land in question and beating
up people venturing towards it.’
On Tuesday heavily armed police were summoned to arrest other villagers who
had tried to claim back their land, taken over by the multi-million dollar
Ethanol plant. Out of the 15 picked up on Tuesday, five remain in custody.
‘In total we have seven people in custody including the Mlambo brothers and
we are currently running around to engage lawyers to represent them,’ the MP
said.
Makuyana said it was disappointing to note that instead of trying to engage
the villagers and come up with some sort of understanding; Macdom officials
have instead launched counter-accusations of theft against some of the
farmers.
‘I have been to the police and met the officer-in-charge and he informed me
that those in cells are facing charges of stealing sugarcane from the Macdom
fields. I want us to be rational in dealing with this highly sensitive
issue, so I’m making frantic efforts to contact deputy Prime Minister
Mutambara and his cabinet committee to deal with this issue urgently before
it spirals out of control,’ Makuyana said.