Farming family forced to flee after threats by land invaders

By Alex Bell
24 December 2009

A farming family in Manicaland has been forced to flee their home on Christmas Eve, after violent threats from a group of farm invaders.

Manda Farm’s Ray Finaughty, his wife and three children are all safe after fleeing their home on Thursday afternoon. The family was given three hours to pack their belongings and leave, after increasingly violent intimidation by a group of youths over the last few days. Finaughty, who owns the productive tobacco and chicken farm in Rusape, Manicaland province, has been stopped from feeding his animals or tending his tobacco plantation. He and his family were also briefly held hostage within their home on Thursday morning, before being forced to flee to safety.

The President of the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), Deon Theron, told SW Radio Africa on Thursday that a top Reserve Bank employee, Winnie Mushipe, has been trying to seize the farm since 2007. Finaughty has been in and out of court since then trying to keep his land, with Mushipe accusing him of refusing to leave the ‘state owned’ property. The case was eventually dismissed in 2008, but fresh charges were once again brought forward in May this year, in a case that has been ongoing.

Finaughty meanwhile was one of more than 70 commercial farmers who took the government to the human rights court of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), over the land grab campaign. Last year the SADC ruled last year that the land grab was unlawful, and ordered the Mugabe government to ensure the protection of farmers and their rights to their land. But the ruling has been openly flouted, and land invasions, taking place under the guise of so called land ‘reform’, have intensified this year.

The CFU’s Theron said on Thursday there is no way of moving the country forward if the rule of law continues to be so publicly dismissed. He explained that police in Manicaland have refused to aid Finaughty, dubbing the land invasion a ‘political’ matter. This same excuse has been used by police across the country, meaning the majority of farmers have no help in the face of continued harassment.

This incident comes in the midst of ongoing threats against more than 100 farmers, whose land has been targeted for forced takeover by mainly ZANU PF loyalists and many other well connected beneficiaries. In the past week, a recently widowed farmer’s wife was given 24 hours to leave the farm she shared with her husband, who had been killed in a car accident just days before. Theron explained that at least another two farmers have come under siege this week alone, with former lands minister Didymus Mutasa believed to be behind one of the attacks.

“Things remain very tense and the tragedy is that these farmers can’t even produce crops for the country, which they really want to do,” Theron said, alluding to the fact that Zimbabwe, the former ‘bread basket’ of Africa, is still so heavily reliant on food aid.

The ongoing land attacks have also left tens of thousands of people unemployed, as farm workers and their families have also been forced to leave the properties along with their employers. The General Agriculture and Plantation Workers Union (GAPWUZ) has said more than 60 000 people have been left destitute as a direct result of the land grab initiative this year alone. The workers have often been the silent victims in the land grab campaign, a plight that GAPWUZ has highlighted in the documentary ‘House of Justice’. The film explains how farm workers have faced horrific abuse, including beatings and torture, at the hands of land invaders. The film also appeals to regional leaders within SADC to intervene.

But there has been no effort by either the unity government or by SADC to stop the attacks that are having such far flung implications for the country.