Farm looting: a rare glimpse

Mliswa, the only one in 10 years of farm lawlessness and common robbery on commercial farms to be charged with stealing from farmers, is facing charges of defrauding two Mashonaland was earlier last week charged with defrauding two Mashonaland West farms of property worth more than US$23 million.

He was last Thursday released on US$400 bail. But the police swooped on him gain the following day citing fresh charges of fraud against the businessman who has publicly clashed with police chief Augustine Chihuri over share in a white-owned car firm. Details of the new charges were not yet clear save that Mliswa a nephew to Zanu (PF) secretary for administration and Presidential Affairs Minister, Didymus Mutasa — was linked to at least 40 cases of fraud.

Death threats

While information pertaining the latest cases was yet to emerge, the two earlier counts of fraud against Mliswa provide a rare glimpse into how Mugabes allies helped themselves to commercial farms and property without paying a single cent and all in the name of restoring land to poor blacks from whom it was stolen by white settlers.

According to the police, Mliswa sometime in 2004 approached Jacobs Van De Merwe, whose Orib Park Farm in Karoi had been listed for compulsory acquisition by the government, and told the farmer that he could help sell his movable property and equipment on a 10 percent commission.

Mliswa – a former fitness trainer but now a wealth businessman and farmer – went on to sell the property that included 104 cows, four bulls, three heavy vehicles, a cold-room, three tractors, one hammer mill, an assortment of irrigation equipment and generators. He allegedly raised US$3 644 058 from the sale and converted the cash to his personal use. When the complainant tried to recover his property he was threatened with death, reads part of the court documents shown to The Zimbabwean on Sunday.

3 000 head of cattle

In the second case said to have been committed around January 2006, the politician is alleged to have approached Nick Van Ransburg, a former manager at Dunlop Range Farm near Kwekwe town, and promised to help protect his equipment from seizure but on condition that the two entered an agreement of sale.

But according to the police as soon as the agreement of sale was signed Mliswa went on to grab 3000 head of cattle worth US$900 000 and farm equipment which included bulldozers, tractors, lorries, graders, pick-up tracks all valued at US$20 000 million. He sold the property and kept the proceeds, the police charge.

In fact the purported agreement was a method of inducing the complainant to part with his property in anticipation for protection from the accused, reads the charge sheet in part. Before the farm fraud charges were brought against him, Mliswa was arrested two weeks ago over allegations of fraudulently acquiring major shareholding Nashio Motors working in cahoots with the Mutasas son Martin.

Mliswa denies the allegations insisting that he legitimately acquired 51 percent stake in Nashio Motors and has publicly accused Chihuri of conniving with Peter Westwood, who holds 49 percent in Nashio Motors, to deprive him of his controlling stake in the company. The fiery-tempered Mliswa more than a week ago labeled Chihuri one of the most corrupt men in the country who was using the police to try to intimidate him into giving up his Nashio stake. It is unclear what Chihuris interest in Nashio, if any, is.

Meanwhile Mliswa faces a long jail term if convicted of defrauding farmers.

Dangerous precedent

But it remains unclear whether a bench staffed by several judges who received former white farms and other property from the government would want to imprison the politician and in the process set what clearly amounts to a very dangerous precedent for all people who benefited from land seizures.

Neither is it likely that Mugabe and Zanu (PF), who still control the judiciary system despite formation of a power-sharing government with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, would be comfortable seeing Mliswa going to jail for stealing white property, something nearly all of them are accused of doing.

Mugabes land reforms that he says were necessary to correct a colonial land ownership system that reserved the best land for whites and banished blacks to poor soils, are blamed for plunging Zimbabwe into food shortages after he failed to support black villagers resettled on former white farms with inputs to maintain production.

In addition critics say the veteran leaders cronies in Zanu (PF) and the security establishment and not ordinary peasants benefited the most from farm seizures with some of them ending up with as many as six farms each against the governments stated one-man-one-farm policy.