Residents beaten up by Mugabe youths

Demanding money from residents … Philip Chiyangwa

The drunken youths, most of them holding bottles of beer, blocked residents from accessing Southlea Park Primary School premises which had been booked for the meeting.

Using bricks, the rowdy youths who included one Nhakiwa, Chigwida, Kismore and Ranga attacked three members of the Southlea Park Home Owners Association’s leadership, Joseph Brian Chuma, Wisdom Chitsvete and Maxwell Tundu.

The injured were taken to a local clinic for medical attention after reporting the case to Mbudzi police base.

“You are not going to hold any meetings here in Southlea Park which our party has not sanctioned,” shouted one of the youths while pushing away the residents’ association’s leadership.

“We need you to produce the police clearance letter before you conduct your meeting here; that is what we were told by our superiors,” they demanded.

Southlea Park Home Owners Association president, Nathan Nyambuya, told the gathering outside the venue that they had to postpone the meeting because of the violence.

“As you can all see, we have tried to hold this meeting and give you an update on what is going on but we have been blocked,” said Nyambuya.

“Some of our senior members have been beaten up and we are left with no choice but to abandon the meeting because going ahead would endanger your lives.

“The meeting was verbally sanctioned by the police but it’s only that some overzealous people who are being used have decided to take the law into their hands.

“As a non-violent grouping of residents’ representatives we are going to approach the relevant authorities and report this incident.”

Residents had gathered at the school in their numbers to be addressed by the association leadership on the continued demands for compensation for the land by Zanu PF central committee member Philip Chiyangwa.

Chiyangwa is demanding $5,000 per household from the over 8,000 Southlea park residents.

The businessman is claiming that he owns the farm on which the residents were allocated residential stands by the government.

Chiyangwa is threatening to evict those who fail to pay him for the land.

Residents are however refusing to pay, saying that the farm was seized by government in 2006 from a consortium of white business people and was now State property.

They (residents) have since approached the High Court for relief.