Published by the government of Zimbabwe
3 April 2008
Harare — Some white former commercial farmers are reportedly threatening new owners and workers claiming that they will soon be coming back to reclaim the properties as they anticipate an MDC victory in the harmonised polls.
Such cases have been reported in Mashonaland West Province where scores of the erstwhile landowners visited farms they used to own but have since been redistributed to blacks under the land reform programme.
The former commercial farmers are said to have been to Paarl, Impofu and Bougainvillea farms a week ago and threatened resettled farmers that they were coming back for the land they owned previously. In an interview with The Herald in Selous yesterday, Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association Chegutu chapter chairman Cde Edmore Matanhike confirmed the development. "A group of whites visited Paarl, Impofu and Bougainvillea farms and later gathered at Selous Country Club celebrating that they would return to 'their' farms after the elections," he said.
"Our investigations have revealed that they are white former commercial farmers from Zambia camped at Kariba and others from Mozambique based at Chikwalakwala preparing to take their former farms if Tsvangirai wins this election," he said. Cde Matanhike said he gathered the information from the white farmers who visited some farms in Chegutu East.
He said the returning farmers were linked to some white farmers in the province whose properties were not gazetted by Government for compulsory acquisition for resettlement purposes. But Cde Matanhike said war veterans would not sit and watch them reverse the gains of the liberation struggle brought about by President Mugabe's leadership. "We will be left with no option except to take up arms and defend our pieces of land," he said. In the run-up to the elections, the Commissioner of Prisons, Retired Major-General Paradzai Zimondi, said if the opposition won the elections, he would resign and go and defend his piece of land allocated under the land reform programme.
People interviewed at Paarl, Impofu and Bougainvillea farms confirmed the visits by the white farmers. Mrs Irene Richard Nikwi of Paarl Farm, a former maid to one of the white farmers, confirmed that a Mr Cray Wherret and his brothers visited her family at their plot. "I was away but they saw my husband. It was my former boss's children who visited us. They were on motorbikes and said they were going to a wedding and had just decided to pass by to pay a courtesy call," she said.
She said she nursed Mr Wherret when she was the family's maid. At Impofu, Mrs Serina Phiri confirmed that some white farmers had been to the farm. "I saw them on motorbikes. They told people that they were coming back to the farms." Former white farmer Mr Triegaardt Stefanus Lombard is said to have also visited Bougainvillea Farm and took photographs of the farm.
"He came here together with four other white farmers and inspected the whole farm taking photographs in the process," said Mrs Lydia Mukucha, a resettled farmer. Mrs Audrey Hativagone, Zanu-PF councillor for Ward 29 Chegutu East and also a farmer, said she was surprised by the development. "I am surprised and I wonder how this is going to happen. We voted for President Mugabe so that we can retain our land. We hear that Morgan Tsvangirai is promising the whites that same land."
Several white commercial farmers whose properties were compulsorily acquired for redistribution to the landless black majority settled in neighbouring Zambia, Mozambique, South Africa, Nigeria and Australia. They are reported to be camping on Zimbabwe's borders with neighbouring countries waiting to return once the MDC is declared winner of the elections. Last month reports from Nigeria said former farmers who had settled in that country where desperate to return home and repossess properties they previously owned.
The farmers were banking on the MDC winning the elections. The MDC Tsvangirai faction has said it would reverse the land reforms if elected into power. Its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, has described the land redistribution programme as illegal and detrimental to foreign investment.
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