Chronicle EditorPatrick Chitumba, Midlands Bureau Chief
THE Government has moved in to restore order at Chemagora farming area in Gokwe South following last week’s skirmishes that resulted in the death of a farm owner and an illegal settler.
At the same time police have reportedly arrested 15 suspects in connection with the death of Chemagora Farm 17 owner Mr George Jongwe last Friday.
He was allegedly brutally murdered by illegal settlers at his farm after he shot dead one of them while trying to evict them from his property.
Midlands Provincial Administrator, Mr Abiot Maronge, said normalcy had returned to Chemagora farms.
“I hear the situation is calm. Discussions on the way forward are still pending as Government moves in to restore order and peace. With regards to the murders and arrests, the matter is in the hands of the police now,” he said.
Midlands provincial police spokesperson Inspector Joel Goko confirmed that police had made some arrests but referred this publication to the national police spokesperson, Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi who was not reachable.
In an interview, Mr Dumapi Tutami who is the Chemagora Small Scale Commercial Farmers’ Union chairperson said order has since been restored at Chemagora farms.
“A total of 15 arrests were made yesterday morning (Saturday) and all arrested individuals were found surrounding Mr Jongwe’s lifeless body,” he said.
Mr Tutami said there are a total of 48 black owned farms in Chemagora Ward 28 and 24 of those have been invaded since 2009.
“All efforts to seek justice were exhausted. All court judgments in favour of farm owners were never enforced in the old dispensation and were totally disregarded by authorities at that time, we had lost hope until the new dispensation started putting things right and the evictions had come as a relief after years of being treated like second class citizens in our own country of birth,” he said.
Mr Tutami said Chemagora farms were pegged in 1975 as purchase areas and were sold to black indigenous Zimbabweans.
“As a result of illegal settlements- massive land degradation and the resultant land erosion have caused the siltation of Sengwa River which flows to the Zambezi and a National Geographical survey report was once published which indicated that the loose Kalahari sands of Chemagora have now reached the Zambezi river basin threatening the lifespan of Kariba dam whose strategic national importance is too obvious to mention,” he said.
The illegal settlers have been occupying about 54 000 hectares of black-owned farms and have been caught up in a land row which at times saw their houses being torched by the deputy sheriff after the land owners were granted eviction orders by the courts.
Government at one time earmarked 35 000 hectares of land in Chirisa Game Reserve for the resettlement of Chemagora families and other families from Gokwe South and Gokwe North.
derick.khumalo