REFLECTIONS with Isdore: ‘Even the walls have ears’

to night sounds and sift through voices as they steal the limelight from silence, which in itself is golden.

Deals, deals and deals! When you cut deals clandestinely, they have a defiant way of announcing themselves, sooner or later. Like a silent fart, deals soon announce themselves, even when you want to hide them from the public domain. Fetid!
Dear reader, we will go back to the deals, later in this very installment. In the village, land is important and so is the land reform programme that underpinned the people’s struggle or Chimurenga that gave birth to Zimbabwe by condemning colonialism to the dustbin of history.

In the village, scars of the war are still evident and the land reform pacified the villagers who bore the brunt of the struggle: the villagers whose children, brothers and sisters crossed into Mozambique and Zambia to train and come back transformed into firebrand freedom fighters, determined to liberate their country and reverse, especially, the land tenure system.

The villagers embraced the land reform programme and are metaphorically performing miracles on the acquired farms. Talk of Sydney Gwaze, Sydney Mhisi, Tafirenyika Chivavaya, Peter Chikumba and Yours Truly, among others, their farms can make former owners grin with envy.
But just a spitting distance across the Hangwa River (bastardised to Angwa River by the white settlers), the story if different! Some place called Karoi beckons.
The small linear town of Karoi – famed for the epitaph of a witch deftly gliding on a broom – is halfway the distance from Harare to Kariba or Harare-Chirundu and is certainly a perfect stopover for any discerning traveller.

The epitaph of the witch must have a bearing on the farmers in this land of the lazy ones. Mid last year, this villager was on his way to Kariba for personal business. Having driven past rustic villages, vast swathes of farm land, and negotiating hair-pin curves on the taxing snaking mountain road in Mapinga, the villager equally decided to stop.
For those in love with peace and tranquillity, there is a place where you can rest, undisturbed. It is a tranquil, quiet and well-maintained wooded place, the Twin Rivers Inn. It is here that this villager met one Never Gasho, who quickly talked about an orgy of black farmers leasing out land to former white commercial farmers. He called it a scandal and it indeed was, and still is.

Call him eccentric or what, Gasho always has information on his finger tips and is one guy who identifies with the truth. This villager wishes he was a journalist. Gasho will not keep quiet when he knows the truth. He searches for it too.
That wintry morning, Secretary for Information and Publicity, George Charamba, was on his way to Zambia and also stopped over the Twin Rivers for refreshments.
After exchanging a few greetings, Gasho, took this villager aside and begged him to visit the farms and see how the “President would be shocked by what war veterans and other beneficiaries of the land reform had sought to reverse the land reform by leasing out land to the same white farmers they had replaced.”

Gasho who knelt down, greeting Charamba, the traditional way, wished to lead a delegation to Charamba’s office, but never mentioned the purpose of his visit as it was the wrong place, as he was later to tell this villager.
Gasho had a list of the farms and the names of each white farmer and black owner leasing out land. He had the details of each deal and he knew the farm physically and the crops grown. As dictated by journalism, this villager changed his plans and drove into farm after farm, meeting the white farmers as they irrigated tobacco and wheat, meeting the black beneficiaries and getting the real details of the deals. Taking pictures even.

Like the proverbial silent fart, the deals exposed themselves and The Herald was handy. Of course, many people questioned the logic of The Herald carrying such a story but it is good to notice that the story has ignited policy changes in land tenure.
This villager, who over the years, has been proud of being a team player at the national flagship is happy that the President has sought to have a full investigation into the malpractice.
Being a villager, I am not used to blowing my own trumpet for there are no trumpets in the village. But honestly, that story deserves recognition and so does The Herald, for, was it not Achebe, who said every man, brags about the size of his manhood, no matter how tiny. No foul mouthing intended, dear reader. The truth can be stubborn.

Great! The revelations are going to be shocking because political heavyweights in Mashonaland West spearheaded the deals, when they heard that there was an audit coming.
Their mantra that time was that the farms should be seen by the auditors and the President as being utilised so it was better to re-engage the former farm holders.
This villager is not afraid to say that these farmers do not need any sympathy and do not need the land even. They are a bunch of cheats, cheating their own revolution and selling out the cause of the struggle. No one and virtually no one was forced to receive land and so those who cannot farm should be evicted and replaced by those who need land.

Take for instance the case of Sydney Gwaze, whose farm in the land of milk, honey and dust has only 34 hectares of arable land and is forced to rent an extra 60 ha from neighbours to meet his cropping demands.

Year in year out, Gwaze has been struggling for land, for, most of his farm is rocky and mountainous. Such farmers like Gwaze, who has since the land reform bought four tractors, three lorries, generators, six small cars for himself and his managers, built houses for his employees, among others need more land, when others are leasing out entire farms and staying in town. Gwaze employees more than 100 workers too!

Gwaze has been looking for a bigger farm and has been failing to get the said farm. At the current farm, he has put in place a state-of-the art irrigation scheme but is prepared to relocate to a better and bigger farm. Mashonaland Central Governor Martin Dinha is posted with the matter.

One day, when the Government gets to the bottom of the land issue in Karoi, and of course, elsewhere, farmers like Gwaze must be given first preference and relocated to the abused farms.
Honestly, that broom-riding witch in Karoi, must have bewitched many of these black farmers, who have lost the essence of the struggle and lost their mind. What is their understanding of the land reform?

The village soothsayer, that ageless fountain of wisdom and knowledge from the land of milk, honey and dust, is no Wikileaks and does not intend to blow the whistle. The soothsayer says the farmers in Karoi will expose the political leadership in their district, who even coerced some farmers into the deals after being paid hefty monies by former white farmers.

“There is one political bigwig, a legislator for that matter, who went around the farms urging farmers to craft deals with former white farmers. He is quacking in his boots right now knowing that his days are numbered.

“Most of the farmers borrowed a leaf from him. If a boss is doing it, why can’t the juniors do it too?
“There will be gnashing of teeth and when chickens come home to roost, the truth shall prevail. Never Gasho will be vindicated,” says the soothsayer.

Back in the villager people are worried that there are young men, who were boys when the land reform programme took shape and now they have families and also need the land. The villagers, who survive by land tilling wish some of their children would be allocated these farms being abused by the farmers leasing out land and getting paid a mere 3 percent of the profit.

This villager and his kind will support any move to withdraw land from all those who abused it by leasing out. This villager and his kind will support any move to relocate all those A2 farmers who leased land to A1 plots and promote A1 farmers with serious farming records and needing bigger plots.

This villager and his kind will support farmers like Sydney Gwaze so that they are given enough land to produce more.
Finally this villager and his kind will urge Government to revisit the land tenure system and pluck out all those with no capacity to operate A1 farms and find them smaller portions. This villager will call

that right-sizing.
The village soothsayer says: “Sooner that latter, the culprits will be brought to book. Everyone involved is quacking in his or her boots!”