Published by the government of Zimbabwe
13 November 2009
Harare — AT least 50 families, who illegally occupied farms in the Masvingo East commercial farming area at the height of farm occupations, have over the past week been ordered off the land in a new spirited wave of evictions to rid the province of improperly settled farmers.
However, the move to evict the illegal settlers has been met with mixed reactions with some of the settlers alleging that the decision was ill-timed as it coincided with the start of the farming season.
The illegal settlers were evicted from farms in Masvingo East such as Dick Renny, Chidza, and Yotum, which are mainly black-owned farms and, therefore, not supposed to be acquired for resettlement purposes.
Some of the families said their future was now bleak, as they were likely to lose this year's whole farming season because of evictions. Masvingo provincial administrator Cde Felix Chikovo yesterday said there was nothing wrong with the evictions since the law was very clear on the status of black-owned farms.
He, however, said the onus was now on the state to look for alternative land to resettle the affected villagers.
"The law is very clear that black-owned farms cannot be acquired for resettlement and in this case, these families were illegally occupying the farms hence it was up to the farm owners and not the state to choose when to evict the illegal settlers.
"The timing of the evictions was, however, not good as it will put more pressure on the State to look for alternative land to resettle the families who have been evicted," said Cde Chikovo.
He said the backlog for landless people in Masvingo was growing everyday adding that at the moment there were about 10 000 people whose status on farms throughout the province needed to be regularised.
Cde Chikovo said the major hiccup was the fact that the province had run out of land to resettle landless people who were irregularly settled on farms in the province.
Government was also looking for land to resettle nearly 1 000 Chitsa families who have been staying in Gonarezhou National Park and a further 2 000 families from Gororo communal lands who will be moved by the Tokwe-Murkosi Dam.
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