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The Rhodesia Herald, 16 August 1969
FOUR hours of talks in the cold, damp mountain air of Inyanga today failed to resolve the dispute over the Rhodesian Government’s plan to move self-styled Chief Rekayi Tangwena and his people from a European farm to an area nine miles away.
Mr Tangwena and 10 of his tribesmen walked 30 miles yesterday from their kraal on Gaeresi Ranch to meet the Secretary for Internal Affairs, Mr Hostes Nicolle.
Today they talked at the office of the District Commissioner, Mr R. Watt.
Mr Nicolle told Mr Tangwena and his people that the land they would be given in exchange was much better than their present land.
Mr Tangwena after much argument, adamantly refused to be moved.
Speaking through an interpreter, he told me: “We have been requested to move to Bende, which I understand to be a forest reserve.
“It is surrounded by European areas and I believe Africans who have been moved there before have been moved elsewhere again.
“We have refused to be moved from the land where we were born. We are going to stay on this land which we know best how to use.
“We have told the Secretary we are going to stay and have said also that the Government should buy this land and give it to us to use.
“Mr Nicolle accused us of trying to be the Government.
“We told him we were not the Government, but that the Government ought to obey the will of the people,” he said.
The disputed land, which the Appellate Division of the High Court ruled the Tangwena people were occupying legally is on a Ranch owned by Mr William Hammer.
Last February, the officer administering the Government, Mr Clifford Dupont made a proclamation under section 83 of the Land Apportionment Act, ordering 36 families, including Mr Tangwena’s people, to leave their present homes by the end of the month.
Late tonight, there was still some hope. Three of Mr Tangwena’s headmen agreed to go with Mr Nicolle to see the area where the Government plans to settle them.
Some local Africans to whom I talked to, men who know the area, said they knew it to be better than the land where Mr Tangwena and his tribe are living.
LESSONS FOR TODAY
One of the main reasons of the First and Second Chimurenga was the land, which was expropriated from its rightful black inhabitants by the colonial settlers in 1890. This is the reason why Government embarked on the land reform programme in 2000, to return the land to its rightful owners.
The Tangwena people settled in this area before the Pioneer Column arrived in 1890. The Rhodesian Government used the 1930 Land Apportionment Act to evict the Tangwena people from their land claiming it was designated for whites.
Chief Tangwena resisted official efforts to move him from Gaeresi. This show of defiance led him to be convicted several times. For this he is a hero who resisted settler dominance and manipulation.
The Tangwena people suffered inhuman treatment at the hands of the settler regime. Their only crime was that they refused to be dispossessed of what rightly belong to them.
As the land redistribution continues, the Tangwena people should be prioritised.
Online Reporter