War Vets Force Farmer To Sell Crocodiles For A Song
24/03/2010 11:49:00
Chiredzi, March 24, 2010 – Machete wielding and boisterous war veterans chanting Zanu PF revolutionary songs on Thursday descended on former Chiredzi white crocodile farmer Digby Nesbitt’s homestead in the sugar growing town and ordered him to sell his over 8 000 crocodiles worth about US$1,5 million for a song or risk watching them slaughtered by the liberation war fighters.
The war vets, ostensibly working under the instructions of police Senior Assistant Commissioner Edmore Veterai, the Matabeleland North police commander, who grabbed Nesbitty’s crocodile farm last month, ordered the hapless former white farmer to sell all his crocodiles for only US$150 000.
Fearing that his reptile business might just vanish like blue mist, Nesbit complied with the belligerent war veterans order and sold all his reptiles for a song which where then bought by Senior Assistant Commissioner Veterai himself and his cronies.
Snr Ass Com Veterai grabbed Nesbitt’s thriving crocodile farm in Chiredzi, which used to be home to over 10 000 crocodiles which were bred for the export market earning Zimbabwe millions of foreign currency every year.
Nesbitt, who fought a spirited battle against Snr Ass Com Veterai that spilled into the courts, ended up auctioning his reptiles for a song under the guard of war veterans who threatened to kill.
”I have no option save to sell these crocodiles for the amount which they want me to sell them what else can I do if they tell me that they will kill all of them, after all this property is no longer mine after the court ruled that I must leave to pave way for Mr Veterai, where else can I take the crocodiles to, I have to oblige with what they have told me to do,’ said Nesbitt.
He said after being kicked out of his crocodile farm, his focus was now to leave from real estate as he owned several buildings in the sugar cane growing town of Chiredzi.
”Crocodile farming was my life but my life has to move on after losing the land under which I carried my project, life has to go on because there is nothing really which I can do,’ he said.
Some of the war veterans who confronted Nesbitt were putting on T-shirts emblazoned with President Mugabe’s face and vowed to kick out all the remaining white farmers in Chiredzi who they accused of sabotaging the economy and ill-treating blacks.
Nesbitt was in December last year ordered by Chiredzi Magistrate, Mr Enias Magate to have vacated his crocodile farming project in Chiredzi by February 22 this year to pave way for Snr Assistant Commissioner Veterai.