VILLAGERS who were forcibly relocated to make way for Zimbabwe’s largest inland dam, Tokwe-Mukosi, are in another bind as an unnamed investor claims ownership of the land the government gave them.
The close to 3,000 families (20,000 people) who were moved to Chingwizi and promised financial compensation by government in 2014 are now demanding answers from the Ministry of Lands after receiving threats and orders to leave.
Having initially resisted construction of the 9,600-hectare dam, over 20,000 villagers eventually fled their ancestral homes for Chingwizi and areas around Naunetsi Ranch after the area began to flood in 2014.
The government later offered them land, helped them build schools and hospitals and allowed the communities to restart their communal lifestyle.
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Their dead are now buried in the land that an unnamed investor is claiming as his own. The investor is said to have already desecrated some of them as they seek to drive the villagers out.
Obey Shava and Tatenda Sigauke of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) are demanding answers on behalf of the under-fire villagers, with a letter sent to Lands Minister Vangelis Haritatos on the matter.
“We act for the various households and families who were resettled at Chingwizi Section, Nuanetsi Ranch A. Mwenezi District. Masvingo Province, by virtue of Statutory Instrument 53 of 2014, having been displaced from their original homes in three phases to pave way for the construction and development of the Tokwe-Mukosi Dam,” reads a letter to the Ministry.
“Our clients have, with the knowledge and sanction of your Ministry, occupied. developed and improved the land allocated to them over a considerable period of time.
“They have, among other things, constructed homes, schools and clinics on the land, and have buried their deceased family members there.
“We are instructed that, in recent weeks, certain persons and/or companies, purporting to be investors, have entered upon the land occupied by our clients and are disturbing our clients’ peaceful and undisturbed occupation thereof.
“These persons/companies claim to have been allocated the very same land by your Ministry.
“We are further instructed that these persons/companies, or those acting on their behalf, have desecrated graves situated on the land and have threatened to raze down our clients’ homes using graders, without producing any order of court or other lawful authority for doing so.
“Despite demand made upon them, these persons/companies have failed and/or refused to produce to our clients any documentation demonstrating that our clients’ rights of occupation have been lawfully terminated or the land lawfully repossessed by your Ministry, or that they are the lawful new allottees or occupiers of the land in question.
“Our clients are entitled to know, and your Ministry is obliged in law and in fairness to disclose, the true position regarding the land which our clients occupy.”
It has been downhill for the villagers since fleeing the Tokwe-Mukosi floods.
After the government promised them financial compensation, they were forgotten, then offered payment in Zimbabwe’s then worthless currency, the RTGS, before being totally ignored again.
Shava and Sigauke have demanded that the Ministry of Lands reveal whether it has indeed sold the land on which it relocated the Tokwe-Mukosi villagers in 2014.
A seven-day period has been given, during which the ministry was encouraged to explain whether the villagers’ right to the land was revoked, whether the land was sold and the identity of individuals or companies that own it, if any.
Adds the letter to Haritatos: “We hereby demand that your Ministry, within seven days of receipt of this letter, furnish us with a written response confirming whether your Ministry has allocated, offered, leased or otherwise purported to allocate any portion of the land currently occupied by our clients at Chingwizi Section, Nuanetsi Ranch A, to any other person(s), company or companies.
“If so, the full identity of such person(s)/company or companies, including registered names, physical and registered addresses, and company registration details where applicable.
“The precise legal basis and the statutory instrument(s), gazette notice(s), offer letter(s) or other document(s) relied upon for any such allocation to a third party;
“Whether and, if so, when and how our clients’ rights of occupation under Statutory Instrument 53 of 2014 were terminated, withdrawn or repossessed;
“Copies of all offer letters, gazette notices, agreements or other instruments pursuant to which any new allocation over our clients’ land was purportedly made; and
“What steps, if any, your Ministry has taken or intends to take to protect our clients from unlawful eviction, harassment, desecration of graves and threatened demolition of their homes, pending the resolution of this matter.”
According to Shava and Sigauke, the villagers will resist any attempts to remove them off the land illegally.
Read the original article on New Zimbabwe.
