The farm belongs to Wayne
Munroe and was invaded Wednesday afternoon by a gang that assaulted the farm
workers. About 60 families were forced to leave and were given no time to
pack any belonging. They were told to return to their original homelands but
most have no other home to go to. Dozens of families were seen by the main
road, where they slept Wednesday night. Many have young children with them
and no money for food.
A general worker who escaped and managed to hide has revealed that Mpofu
visited the gang Wednesday night to check on their progress. This means the
MP ordered the evictions of the farm workers and their families and may have
provided the gang with the weapons, which they fired into the air to
intimidate the farm workers. As we reported Wednesday shots were also fired
at farm owner Wayne Munroe, as he fled from his office. Fortunately all the
shots missed their target.
Our contact said the attackers are not war veterans as media reports tend to
suggest. The majority are settlers who were given plots by Mpofu and he uses
them to do his dirty work. This group included school children as young as
13 and women. They came in local government vehicles and had knobkerries and
axes. A few of them had guns.
Most of the attackers live on plots surrounding the MP’s own farm. There is
nothing growing on their plots and they often came looking for work and food
from the Munroes. The general worker said these people would not attack
people who had helped them, without orders to do so. He said they are
forced by top government officials like Mpofu, because they were given plots
of land.
A group of 20 farm workers’ families are still barricaded in the farmhouse,
along with Wayne Munroe’s wife Ursula and their two children aged 2 and 4.
Wayne is barricaded in his mother’s house. The invading gang is reported to
have spent Thursday walking around the property, helping themselves to maize
from the fields and cooking outside the front door of the farmhouse. They
are expected to resume their toy-toying tonight.
Top government and military officials have been illegally grabbing the last
few commercial farms left in the country, leaving more farm workers
displaced and without a job. The police continue to refuse to get involved.
Post published in: News