Chiefs Felix Murandu Tshovani, Mavivi Misheck Gudo and Mundau Sengwe forcibly took sugar cane farms from fellow blacks. Chief Tshovani took over plot 16 in Hippo Valley while chiefs Sengwe and Gudo grabbed plots in the Mukwasine area. A member of the Zimbabwe Sugar Milling Workers Union, Marko Shoko, confirmed the development, adding that the traditional leaders were now living in the farm houses.
Shoko said the chiefs were claiming that the land belonged to their ancestors.
“Chief Tshovani displaced a war veteran called Guruveni,” Shoko told The Zimbabwean.
A farmer in the area who refused to be named said they were not sure who was going to be the next target. “Those who lost farms were being targeted because they are not Shangaani-speaking people,” added the farmer.
A spokesman for the chiefs, Chief Tshovani, yesterday confirmed that they had taken over the farms. He said the move followed a plea they made two years ago to vice president Joyce Mujuru that they needed sugar cane farms. “As leaders of the Shangaani community we told the vice president that we needed farms and after discovering that no one was taking us seriously, we then took over plots of our choice,” said Chief Tshovani.
Masvingo Provincial Governor Titus Maluleke confirmed the development. He said chiefs in Chiredzi were entitled to sugar cane farms as they were custodians of the land.
Hordes of Zanu (PF) supporters, among them senior politicians, civil servants and members of the security service, grabbed huge pieces of land in the sugar cane growing area of Chiredzi under the land reform programme in 2000.
Post published in: News