Chronicle Editor
Munyaradzi Musiiwa, Midlands Correspondent
TRADITIONAL leaders in the Midlands Province have called on Government to identify a new piece of land to resettle Chemagora illegal settlers.
Speaking during a National Peace and Reconciliation Commission outreach programme in Gweru last week, National Chiefs Council member and Senator Chief Ngungumbane of Mberengwa said there was a need to resolve the Chemagora land dispute amicably and as a matter of urgency. Chief Ngungumbane said Chemagora land dispute has become one of the main sources of conflict in the province.
“One of the major sources of conflict in the province is land disputes. In Midlands we have Chemagora land dispute. We feel that for that issue to be resolved amicably, Government should identify a new piece of land to relocate those illegal settlers. We acknowledge that those settlers invaded those black owned farms but we also need to treat them as human beings. They were recently evicted from those farms in an inhuman way. Our norms and values are our own constitution as Africans and when someone is wrong we seek restorative justice,” he said.
President Mnangagwa recently set up an inter-ministerial committee to look into the Chemagora issue. The President recently rescued more than 10 000 “illegal settlers” in Chemagora after their houses were torched and crops destroyed by police at midnight last month. About 150 families were left homeless after their homestead and crops were destroyed.
The families were living in makeshift houses, while some were in the open along the Gokwe-Kwekwe Road. The Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement had served the illegal settlers with eviction notices that gave them seven days to vacate the land, but they stayed put.
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