High Court judge Justice Susan Mavangira’s verdict, in which she ordered the government to stop evicting about 900 families from Arnold Farm 10 in Mazowe, is a landmark decision in the rationalisation of the land reform programme.
NewsDay Editorial
The programme, which started in 2000 as a fast-track project ostensibly to correct historical imbalances, has variously been described as violent, chaotic and disruptive. It is blamed for the parlous state of commercial agriculture that the country experiences now.
But this is not to suggest that it was an unqualified disaster. Thousands of black people who would otherwise never have had any access to land and would have remained poor all their lives were genuinely empowered by the programme and are now self-sufficient.
But by its fast-track nature, it was inevitable that mistakes would be made. Major mistakes include allowing settlers on land not meant for resettlement purposes.
But because the project had to succeed at any cost for short-term results, many families became pawns in a high-stakes political game. Now that the game has been won and lost, these people have to be moved again, often in a most callous manner as happened in the Mazowe valley.
It is imperative that the settlement patterns be rationalised now, that is, people who settled in the wrong places should be placed in the right places. In doing this, the starting point should be that there shouldn’t be anyone labelled “illegal settler”.
Some settlers can’t be defined as “illegal” while others are “legal” when the whole resettlement process was universally legitimated by a political process.
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If the political process wishes to redefine resettlement patterns it should do so in a humane manner that doesn’t destroy people’s livelihoods. It was insensitive for the same government, led by the same ruling party that allowed people to settle anywhere they wished, to now turn on the same people and call them criminals.
The process of correcting the mistakes of the resettlement programme must be done in a transparent manner. This can only be achieved if an open, scientific land audit is done. This will show who settled on land not meant for resettlement purpose, with a view to moving them to land where they can build homes, keep animals and grow crops.
It seems the current haphazard removal of people is often driven by envy; greedy people are pushing the removal of vulnerable settlers so they can grab more land for their own selfish purposes.
People who have lived on these farms since 2000 are suddenly told they don’t belong there and have their homes razed to the ground and moved before they have harvested their crops. Their children are unfeelingly removed from schools when they, in fact, have done nothing wrong!
Justice Mavangira’s judgment should be used as a guide to all future removals of people. The use of the word “evictions” should be anathema because these people are not criminals and they belong where they are until a viable alternative is offered.
