Five workers shot on invaded Chinoyi farm

By Alex Bell
30 October 2009

Five workers on an invaded farm in the Chinoyi district are being treated in hospital, after they were shot and wounded on Friday by a man believed to be working for the Reserve Bank official who has taken over the land.

The farm, which legally belongs to farmer Louis Fick, has for several months been under siege by hired thugs working for deputy Reserve Bank governor Edward Mashiringwani. Fick no longer has access to his farm and has been fighting a losing legal battle to try have his land returned to him. His staff meanwhile, who have stayed on to try and keep the farm’s numerous animals fed and watered, have faced increasing intimidation and violence. The thugs on the land have used cruelty against the farm’s pigs and crocodiles to try and force Fick to give up the farm, and the animals have been left to go hungry and thirsty.

It is still unclear what led to Friday’s shooting, but the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), reported that Fick’s cook was shot in the chest, a second employee was shot in the head and a third sustained leg injuries. The situation regarding the other two employees is still to be confirmed. The wife of the cook is also reported to have been shot in the head and her condition is believed to be serious. The person allegedly responsible for the shootings is a man named Tichiona, who was severely beaten in a retaliatory attack by other workers after the shootings occurred.

The CFU also initially reported that some of the bullets used in the attack were rubber bullets, which are usually only in the possession of the armed forces. Although evidence of normal shotgun pellets were recovered from the victims later on Friday, the suggestion of the army’s involvement in the farm’s takeover is not surprising, given that the army has been deployed on other farms to ‘oversee land takeovers’. In the Headlands district, Charles Lock’s Karori farm has been taken over by Brigadier General Justin Mujaji, who is also related by marriage to Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, who in turn owns the property next door to Karori farm. Mujaji meanwhile has a personal army of soldiers who were hired to seize the land, and the soldiers have launched a campaign of violence and intimidation against the workers there. Most recently, several workers were beaten and a woman was raped, when soldiers forcibly evicted the workers from the farm.

The police’s response meanwhile to both Friday’s shootings and the attacks on Karori farm has been nonexistent, as all land related incidents have been marked as ‘political’, an excuse the police have been using, not to get involved. CFU President Deon Theron said violence against the remaining commercial farming community is expected to be stepped up, according to intelligence reports. He says the recent violence on farms and the arson attacks at Mount Carmel farm in Chegutu last month, are evidence that the campaign has already intensified.

“We have been fearing a flare up of this type of violence as reports are being received countrywide of the up scaling of violence by ZANU PF and the redeployment of the youth militia, especially in the rural areas,” said Theron.

Fick meanwhile is one of 79 farmers who took their case to the SADC Tribunal in Windhoek last year, and his farm is meant to be protected by the Tribunal’s ruling. The ruling was meant to ensure that the Zimbabwe government protected the farmers from future land invasions, but ZANU PF has refused to abide by the ruling, relentlessly harassing farmers and their workers across the country. The government was this year charged with contempt for ignoring the earlier ruling, but in response, the government announced it no longer recognises the Tribunal.

Despite this, SADC has remained quietly supportive of the government, still clearly controlled by Robert Mugabe, and the regional bloc has not made a single move to admonish Zimbabwe for its ‘pull-out’ of the Tribunal.

“There is a complete breakdown of the rule of law and the situation is extremely volatile - the country is on a knife-edge,” Theron warned. “SADC, the African Union and the international community need to understand that it will take just one small spark to ignite the violence countrywide.”