Mugabe deploys riot police to kick out land invaders

Rowdy youths led by Zanu (PF) ward 21 councilor and ward 18 chairman, identified only as Huni and Gombiro, reportedly besieged the ranch and forced farm workers to stop planting tobacco seedlings in the fields.

The ranch is owned by prominent businessman and honorary Consul of Oman, Kamal Khalfan, who has been closely associated with President Robert Mugabe for many years in a variety of capacities notably that of procurement of arms and equipment for the Zimbabwe National Army since shortly after Independence. These included Cascavell armoured vehicles and small arms.

An eye witness told this reporter that the invaders divided the farm into small plots which they allocated to the youths present. Management raised the alarm and farm owner, Kamal Khalfan, alerted Zanu (PF) top officials who dispatched riot police to drive the invaders off the land, said the source.

The leaders of the invading youths were taken to the local police station for questioning and then released. Normalcy was restored at the farm, said a police officer privy to the invasion.

A highly placed source said Khalfans many connections with Mugabe, the ZNA and other senior Zanu (PF) officials was well known. So there was no way the head of state could fold his arms while his trusted arms supplier was messed up by rowdy party youths, said the source.

Khalfan is very close to Mugabe and regularly supplies the first family with game meat. Part of Eldorado Ranch was partitioned into a game park, which measures more than 2 000 hectares and is home to a wide variety of wildlife, said the source.

Zanu (PF) is busy grabbing the few remaining white-owned farms under an operation code-named Land for the youths. In every other instance where commercial farmers have called the police to rescue them from invading thugs, the police have refused to take action on the grounds that the invasions are political.

Among his many business interests in Zimbabwe, Khalfan is a director of Catercraft Company. The company provides catering services at the Harare International Airport. Efforts to seek comment from him were fruitless. His secretary at Catercraft initially said he was in a board meeting. The number was later put on continuous voice mail.

Marondera District Police Spokesperson, Inspector Bhulisani Bhebhe, on Sunday promised to confirm the farm invasion and riot police incident on Monday. However, he did not take calls from his mobile number come Monday.

Khalfan is closely involved with the Oryx Group and is believed to have been the main negotiator in the deal involving a profit-sharing arrangement with the private Zimbabwean company Osleg (Operation Sovereign Legitimacy) of which the late Defence Force Commander, Lieutenant General Vitalis Zvinavashe, was a director.

According to its partnership agreement with Congo’s Comiex (a private company linked to the Presidency in Kinshasa), Osleg has ‘the resources to protect and defend, support logistically,’ and assist generally in the development of commercial ventures to explore, research, exploit and market the mineral, timber, and. other resources held by the state of the Democratic Republic of Congo.’

Osleg has long been known as the economic wing of the ZDF. During the DRC conflict it hired Russian-piloted Antonov aeroplanes to move mining equipment to Kasai diamond fields. Rebel RCD forces claimed these were the same Antonovs used to bomb their positions in eastern Congo.

Oryx said its rights to exploit the diamond concessions granted by the late Laurent Kabila’s embattled regime were worth over US $1 billion, but said the real value was only $208 million after discounting exploration costs and political risk. Oryx and Osleg got 40 per cent each and the remaining 20 per cent went to Cosleg (a joint venture between Osleg and Congo’s Comiex).