The destruction of homes, illegal shacks as they are referred to, that left hundreds of people homeless in Epworth on Monday serves once again as a lesson to Zimbabweans against allowing politicians to play around with their lives.
Newsday Comment
For how long shall people allow themselves to be used as political cannon fodder by selfish politicians that pretend to have their welfare at heart when in reality they want nothing more than their vote? It is not just in Epworth where Zanu PF has taken advantage of people’s desperation to fool them into selling their vote only to abandon them after they are used and helpless.
Cases abound of people that were made to abandon their homes and livelihoods to accept resettlement on new farms only to find themselves in the open, by the roadside, several months down the road, their household property destroyed by rain or other vagaries of the harsh weather because some party chef suddenly becomes the legitimate owner of that land.
Yet people do not seem to learn. They deserve everyone’s sympathy, but it is difficult to feel sorry for people that allowed themselves to be used in some illegal adventure in the belief that Zanu PF is all-powerful and, therefore, capable of doing as it pleases.
Over 300 households agreed to be settled on a piece of land owned by a private developer and designated for industry. It cannot be true that all these people were not aware they had been “sold a dummy” because common sense calls for inquiries being made with the local authority on the legality of that settlement.
Besides, how do right-thinking people move their families and go on to invest in the construction of houses on land for which they have no council papers, merely on the strength of a word from some political goons to whom they even pay money — even after they are warned the land belongs to someone else?
And, when their homes are demolished, those that took their money are nowhere to be seen and the party that purported to have the authority to settle them there disowns them. They are now on their own, their families and property exposed to the rains — a sad sight indeed. Yet one is tempted to believe they are the authors of their own misfortunes.
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People do not just wake up in the morning owning pieces of land in town because some political party pretenders have offered them the land. Amos Midzi, the Zanu PF chairman for Harare province under which Epworth falls, disowned the illegal settlers and those that offered them the stands, saying his party was not in the habit of giving people land lawlessly.
“We have no policy whatsoever to take over private property anywhere in Harare,” Midzi said.
And those that were behind this monstrosity did not even bother to justify why they duped so many people in the name of the party or why they took the poor people’s money. All they said was that they had expected the rightful owners of the land to give them time to find alternative land to send their victims.
Should the police continue to fold their arms in the face of such criminality? Is this what we have come to as a nation?
