Harare, Zimbabwe (News of the South)-The recent illegal removal of villagers at Arnold Farm in Bindura from their homesteads at the instigation of First Lady Grace Mugabe is another show of the prevailing culture of impunity on the continent, says Tendai Biti the People’s Democratic Party leader.
Over 50 farmers at Arnold farm, allegedly had their homes demolished by members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) despite a High Court ruling that they stop the evictions.
After this forceful eviction, against a High Court ruling, Biti has charged that a lack of respect for the law is the root cause.
“It is the culture of impunity and reckless indifference that has made Africa from Cape to Cairo such a terrible cynical mess”.
“Patronage , capture , exclusion , impunity and clientelism the inevitable dominant discourse of 5 decades of African independence”, he said on his Twitter account.
Another activist Linda Masarira urged the country to spare a thought for the hapless victims some of whom are living in the open.
“Spare a thought for the families who were illegally evicted from Arnold farm and dumped at Riverfarm by ZRP on Grace Mugabe’s instructions”, she said.
The incident is the second after another episode in 2015 when the farmer’s homes were also demolished and over 700 villagers evicted from the nearby Manzou Farm, again allegedly at the instigation of the First Family.
The villagers were later dumped in Rushinga, Lazy and Blagdon farms in Concession before they took legal action and got a High Court reprieve to stay at the property until they had been allocated an alternative piece of land to settle.
According to a Newsday article the villagers had been staying at the farm under the 2006 Rural Land Occupiers Act, but efforts to regularise their stay had been hitting a brick wall since they moved in at the height of the chaotic land reform exercise in 2000.
Some reports state that the farmer’s land has been earmarked for a blasting factory to be run by a Chinese company.
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