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Hot
Seat interview with farm beneficiary Dr Arikana Chihombori and dispossessed
farmer John Worsley Worswick (Part 1)
Violet Gonda, SW Radio Africa
July 10, 2009
Read
Part 2 of this interview
http://www.swradioafrica.com/pages/hotseat130709.htm
Violet Gonda:The land issue is a very emotive one for Zimbabweans.
On the Hot Seat this week we attempt to get to the bottom of this
contentious issue with guests Dr Arikana Chihombori and John Worsley
Worswick. Dr Chihombori is an American citizen of Zimbabwean origin
and has been at the centre of controversy since her attempt to take
over a commercial farm in the Chegutu area. She also hit the headlines
when she accompanied the Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to the
inauguration of the South African President Jacob Zuma. The MDC
say that she is Tsvangirai's niece and there has been concern
that a member of the prime minister's family is involved in
illegal farm grabs. John Worsley Worswick is a spokesperson for
the pressure group Justice for Agriculture and has been campaigning
for many years on behalf of the commercial farmers. Let's
start with Dr Chihombori - you are planning to take over a
farm in the Chegutu area that is owned already by the Cremer family,
why?
Arikana Chihombori: Well let me start by correcting your statement
- I have never tried to take over a farm, period. I have an
offer letter, this application for land was put in over seven years
ago and like I said to you at one point the initial offer letter
also turned out to be a double allocation which was fine by me because
the acreage was a little larger than I thought my sister could handle.
It wasn't until over a year ago that another offer letter
was given and again I never had the opportunity to view any land.
The same was true with the first property, I'd never seen
it before, the land was allocated, it was vacant and my assumption
was, when the second offer letter came with 60 hectares, I felt
comfortable that my sister could work a smaller plot and I'd
never seen it before. I never was given a choice to choose so I
assumed it was another available land just like the previous one
was. So I've never tried to take any land, I only have an
offer letter, plain and simple. So I did not choose whether it was
going to be Chegutu or Mutare or anywhere, I had no choice. I don't
even know why this particular plot was offered to me, an offer letter
is all I have.
Violet Gonda: OK, you are an American citizen and I understand
you have a large medical practice in the US where you have lived
for the last 30 years, so how do you qualify for an offer letter?
Arikana Chihombori: When
I applied, if I remember correctly, I had to also be qualified in
terms of my ability to operate a farm, financially that is and my
assumption was they felt comfortable that I would be able to support
a farm financially. But this was over seven years ago, it's
probably getting close to eight, nine years ago, I can't tell
you exactly when I put in the application but I felt that it was
because financially I could support a farm.
Violet Gonda: I spoke
to the Cremers and they said your sister first came to their farm
with an offer letter that was dated 2007 and then later on one that
was dated December 2008, so does this mean you were given three
offer letters?
Arikana Chihombori: Like
I said, my sister has my power of attorney, of course you can only
get one offer letter. The first offer letter was the one that was
the double allocation and I'm told the DA was asked to straighten
that situation. It was my assumption that I was going to be allocated
a smaller portion of the original offer but to my surprise, a totally
different farm was offered other than the one that was originally
offered which I thought was simply going to be sub-divided and I
would be allocated a smaller portion of that original offer, but
that did not happen.
Violet Gonda: On the
issue of your status, I am presuming that you have dual citizenship,
an American citizenship and a Zimbabwean citizenship?
Arikana Chihombori: Well when I put in the initial application I
was still a permanent resident in the US , I have subsequently become
a citizen.
Violet Gonda: But in
Zimbabwe , dual citizenship is not allowed.
Arikana Chihombori: To
be honest with you, it really did not matter as far as I was concerned,
my sister was going to work the land but secondly it is my understanding
that we are now allowed, dual citizenship is now allowed in Zimbabwe.
Violet Gonda: John, what
are your thoughts on this?
John W. Worswick: Well
Violet what I have heard so far highlights the chaotic nature of
this so-called land reform programme that we've witnessed
over the last nine years in the country, multiple offer letters,
I'm led to believe the first offer letter was for a farm that
was already derelict and probably wouldn't have been attractive
at all. The comments in terms of not being involved in the violent
take over is not true because according to the Cremers' testimony,
Dr Chihombori's sister went there with thugs and put thugs
in place on the farm in January of this year with a view these were
invaders, indisputably invaders onto the property and the only reason
that they pulled off the property was they argued three days later
that they were not being paid enough to drive this eviction.
Arikana Chihombori: Actually
I would like to disagree with that particular story. Look, prior
to coming to Zimbabwe in May of this year, I had not been to Zimbabwe
for almost 20 months, my last visit to Zimbabwe was in 2007, I want
to say August or September. So as far as what was happening on the
farm, I can only go by what my sister told me. I am aware of the
situation when she went with the, I'm not sure if it was the
land officer or just someone from the lands office in Chegutu and
that is the situation I discussed with you pertaining to the abuse
that took place. Other than that I know she has been back on the
farm, again trying to talk to Mr Cremer. The story about trying
to invade the farm, I'm not familiar with it. In January certainly
I hadn't been to Zimbabwe , since the previous year.
John W. Worswick: Can I come in there - yes, indisputably it was
Dr Chihombori's sister that was there in January that went
onto the farm with these invaders but indisputably also she was
acting probably with the power of attorney of Dr Chihombori but
certainly acting as her agent on that front. I'd also like
to comment on the dual citizenship issue in that provision has been
made in the next amendment to the Constitution which has not even
been debated in parliament at this stage to allow for dual citizenship
but as we stand at the moment, and certainly at the time of these
two offer letters the law states basically that from the moment
Dr Chihombori accepted American citizenship and swore an oath of
allegiance to the United States of America, it automatically rescinded
her Zimbabwean passport and she became ineligible and the onus was
on her at that stage to avail yourself of the law and be aware of
exactly the circumstances of accepting that offer letter.
Arikana Chihombori: Well I am aware, this is what I've been
told that the current unity government document does state that
dual citizenship is allowed. The offer letter was given prior to
my becoming a citizen, but again, that's neither here nor
there.
Violet Gonda: What about the process though of taking farms. You've
said that you were given an offer letter but do you think that is
how it should be done that a person can just be given an offer letter
and you just walk onto someone's farm and say I'm taking
it over? I don't know, what can you say about that?
Arikana Chihombori: I think that is rather a crude way of putting
it as it is my understanding that according to the Lancaster agreement
of 1980, the land reform was going to take place and also the Lancaster
agreement clearly stated the process which land reform was going
to occur. It's also my understanding that the process of allocating,
re-allocating the land started with Section Three letter. The Section
Three letter was supposed to give the farmer three years and during
these three years the farmer is supposed to come and negotiate with
the government, put in an application, identify which section of
his farm the farmer was going to keep and the rest would be re-allocated.
Keep in mind some of the farmers owned thousands of hectares, so
clearly I'm hoping John, that we are in agreement that the
land reform needed to take place, the inequalities pertaining to
land needed to be addressed.
So after three years,
if the farmer had not approached the government or submitted an
application, a Section Five letter would be issued and I'm
also told this Section letter would give the farmer six months to
come and submit an application for an allocation for a smaller piece
of land or negotiate with the government which ever way and if again
the farmer continued to disregard the Section Five letter, the final
letter would be the Section Eight. By the time Section Eight letter
was issued it was the understanding that the farmer was unwilling
to negotiate with the government, unwilling to apply for a smaller
portion of the previous farm and it was after the Section Eight
letter that the government was now free to reallocate the farm as
it wished as the farmer would not have been willing to apply for
a smaller portion.
With that backdrop it
seems to me there was enough time given for a farmer who was willing
to clearly say let's do what's right. Surely how can
someone have 20000 hectares, 80000 hectares. The process itself,
I may be wrong in how I see it, but I think if that was followed,
it seems to me the allocation, the land reform programme would have
gone on a little bit smoother but when farmers refuse to put in
an application, refuse to agree to share the land, then it started
a totally different problem. Where we end up after that it just
depends on human feelings.
Violet Gonda: I'll
come to John just now to get his reaction to this but still Dr Chihombori,
with the current chaotic process don't you think there should
be proper procedures that should be followed to redistribute land
to all who needs it?
Arikana Chihombori: I
quite agree with you. Yes there needs to be proper procedures and
like I said that was my understanding the three letters. It seems
to me it was a procedure that if followed, could work but unfortunately
you are dealing with issues of beneficiaries and dispossessions
and it is a touchy issue. So even when you try to deal with it in
the best of environments, it is a difficult situation no doubt about
it.
Violet Gonda: John do
you agree that land redistribution was long overdue?
John W. Worswick: Yes
absolutely Violet I don't think you'll find a single
Zimbabwean especially a Zimbabwean farmer that would argue against
the necessity for the equal distribution of the land in Zimbabwe
although the statistics have been distorted by the propaganda. We
have been all for meaningful land reform but certainly what we've
seen in the last nine years, ten years since the start of the land
invasions is absolute chaos.
I'd like to comment
on Dr Chihombori's ignorance with regard to the legal procedure
in Zimbabwe because what she is saying there would have been heaven
for us here in Zimbabwe in terms of due process, it's not
the case at all and I think it needs to be clarified.
The original Land Acquisition
Act which was brought in in 1992 was a just Act and it involved
merely a preliminary notice of acquisition, a Section Five notice
which had a validity of two years and gave a farmer due warning.
He then would be involved in a court process through a Section Seven
having a fair hearing in a court of law to argue his case and win
it on merit if the State, and it was incumbent on the State to prove
the necessity of taking the land and the suitability of the piece
of land being targeted.
Now what we saw in 2002
was the 2002 May amendment to the land acquisition act, wherein
a Section Eight which in itself was an acquisition order and an
eviction order rolled into one could be issued to a farmer ahead
of a Section Seven. So a farmer could be evicted off his property
within 90 days of receiving a Section Eight and never been called
to court at all and farmers had the right to object on receipt of
a Section Five preliminary notice and most farmers did, not all
but certainly most farmers did object because the process of acquisition
now was absolutely unjust in that it could take a farmer two years,
having been kicked off his farm, illegally evicted, it could take
him two years before he had a fair hearing in a court and if he
won his case at that stage it would be an empty victory in that
he would be returning to a farm that was now derelict and this is
where the problem started.
We saw many other very
unjust laws put in place, there was another amendment that year
that allowed for the targeting now of any property that had been
under agricultural use over the last 50 years which brought into
the target sphere for acquisition urban properties and we've
had urban properties targeted, anything over two hectares has been
targeted for acquisition and deemed to be suitable and necessary.
We then had the repealing
of Sections 6A and Six B of the Act, of the Land Acquisition Act
and this was a provision whereby farmers could cede property, either
old farms if they were multi farm owners or parts of their farm
to protect the residual part of the farm and at the time had political
policy put in place in terms of maximum farm sizes and we had in
excess of 1200 farmers who went down this road and gave away farms
and part of their farms and that at the end of the day because three
years later we saw the repealing in 2004, we saw the repealing of
Sections Six A and Six B of the Act and even in spite of some farmers
having formalised this agreement to cede land to the State to protect
the residual part of their farm, in the administrative courts there
was no basis in law with the repeal of Section Six A and Six B -
those farmers were now in a very precarious position out there having
ceded property.
We then eventually got
to 2005 where there were 4500 cases in the administrative court
challenging the acquisition process as having been flawed. We have
thousands of cases in the High Court with court orders that were
allowing farmers to go back onto their farms but these are not being
upheld because of the breakdown of the rule of law in farming areas
and the police not prepared to support the sheriff in reinstating
these farmers back on their farms.
So the whole legal process
at that stage was totally flawed and with all the amendments, 17,
to the constitution of Zimbabwe promulgated and in one fell swoop
the land was nationalised and from that moment onwards, any farmer
that had received a Section Five notice, preliminary notice of acquisition
was now deemed to be State land. And certainly this quite recently
has been struck down or deemed by the SADC court to be in conflict
with SADC protocols and should never have been enacted in the first
place. Even at the time, the advice from the legal fraternity was
that it conflicted with other parts of Zimbabwe 's constitution.
Now given what Dr Chihombori
has said in terms of her perception of what the law was, certainly
as a Zimbabwe citizen looking to become a beneficiary of land, certainly
I believe it should have been incumbent upon her to make herself
aware of the legal process and to make sure that the legal process
had been followed because we are talking about the displacement
of farming families and although the world seemed to focus on commercial
farming families and we've only got 4500 of those originally,
we're talking about displacement on average of 140 farm worker
families on each property.
So today on the farm
worker committee we're talking about close on to 600 000 families,
total population of about 1.8 million people, we've had 90%
of them displaced and we've had gross human rights violations
on farms to the extent that we believe it constitutes a crime against
humanity and we have a situation where we are recording mortality
amongst the farm worker community directly attributable to this
of in excess of 20% and could be even over 30%.
Violet Gonda: Let me
bring in Dr Chihombori, what can you say about this because I remember
the last time we spoke you had much to say about the treatment of
farm workers on commercial farms and also if I may begin by getting
your reaction to what John said in this interview where he said
your "pretty ignorant" to quote his words on the issues
to do with the legal processes, what can you say about this?
Arikana Chihombori: The
issues that he raised in terms of the various amendments, to expect
me to have kept up with the various amendments is ridiculous. If
you simply put in an application, do you really need to go in and
investigate the laws of the country as a citizen to say am I entitled
to be applying for a mortgage loan? Do you investigate the amendments
that have been done to one's ability to obtain a loan from
a bank? Of course not. So to expect me to have kept up with the
laws and the amendments and the constitution - that's
ridiculous so I won't even go there. That's a discussion
that John at some point hopefully Violet will have someone from
the government to discuss those issues. I am not representing the
government in any way, the conversation that I'm here to have
according to Violet is what has happened and everything else particularly
pertaining to the treatment that my sister received and what I know
as just a regular individual what's happening in my own perception
and understanding of what I've seen on the ground. Now I'm
not going to stand here and answer on policies to do with the Zimbabwean
government, I'm not representing the government and therefore
those questions should be left to someone from the government.
Now moving on to your
next question about mistreatment or rather what I've always
perceived as human rights violations on the farms, let me start
by saying there was a question of how did I get the Cremer farm.
I did call the minister of lands in Chegutu and specifically posed
him that question - how did you choose to give me this particular
farm, unlike any other farm or the previous allocation two, three
years ago. They really couldn't give me a response except
that he was one of the farmers who refused to put in an application
for his own allocation, so that was the response that I was given.
And I was also further told that those farmers who have put in an
application for land have been allocated land. The other farmers
who did not get land allocated is because they didn't put
in their applications. Mr Cremer I am told is one of them. That
is the only reason they would give me as to why they gave me that
farm. Let me also make another point that the original farm that
was allocated a few years ago it had a homestead, my sister was
not interested in homestead, the farm was close enough to Harare,
she was fine with just a smaller allocation of that farm. You could
drive back and forth from Harare to the farm, it was not far from
the farm at all so in terms of saying the farm is developed I don't
even know what the Cremer farm has except what I saw in passing
in May, there was some flower growing going on, other than that
I have no clue what the Cremer farm has.
So the issue of saying
this farm is developed, and some other farm was not developed is
mute, the previous farm was quite fine by my sister and the homestead
had nothing to do with it.
Now the abuse of other
farmers by the current workers, now the reason I agreed to have
this dialogue is because I feel as a human being understanding a
simple land issue that is Zimbabwe, it's a complicated situation,
it's a very difficult situation we all end up in. You have
those who have been dispossessed, now you are looking at both sides.
The white farmers can look at themselves as beneficiaries at one
point but are now considering themselves dispossessed. But you could
also take the blacks and call them beneficiaries currently but are
previous dispossessed. So it's a very tricky situation whichever
way you want to look at it and when you analyse the situation and
you take somebody like John and you take somebody like myself, we
both have families that were both beneficiaries and dispossessed,
so then where do we go which is why I agreed to this conversation.
So it takes John and I realistically looking at the situation and
being fair as we look at the situation. This house belongs to both
of us, we can keep fighting about this house but at some point we
need to stop and say John, it's got four bedrooms, you get
two bedrooms, I get two, if we have to share the living room we
share the living room but at some point an honest, genuine, sincere
approach to the land reform is in place.
Violet Gonda: But Dr
Chihombori, this is where I go back to my earlier question that
is this though how things should be done in Zimbabwe? We know that
there were a lot of historical imbalances and one could ask you
how would you like it if the native Americans decided that they
wanted to take your business and then just go and take it because
this is precisely what is happening even with the way you narrated
how you got the offer letter and how you were given this farm. Is
this the way to do it because you also don't know what happens
on the Cremer farm in terms of the kind of production that happens
on that farm and this has been the case with many of the farms.
How do you respond to this?
Arikana Chihombori: Well
I go back to the Lancaster Agreement. The Lancaster Agreement clearly
stated the way the land issue was going to be handled. At some point
we fell off the tracks in terms of following the Lancaster Agreement.
If the Lancaster Agreement was followed it was a document that was
supposed to make sure this process was carried on legally and professionally
and equitably . . .
Violet Gonda: But you as an individual and as a professional do
you think how you acquired the offer letter to take another commercial
farm that is already productive, do you think that is the way to
do it?
Arikana Chihombori: No
to be honest with you like I said I did not expect an allocation
of a farm that was functioning . . .
Violet Gonda: But that's
how it's been like.
Arikana Chihombori: Contrary
to what I've heard and I've got a few names of people
who were actually given farms that were vacant. The original allocation
for me was vacant, like I said I had hoped that I would get a smaller
portion of the same farm, it was vacant. There are many people who
have been allocated farms that were vacant, this young lady I'm
talking about, her farm was vacant.
Violet Gonda: Let me
come to John. John can you respond to some of the issues raised
by Dr Chihombori and if I can just point out a few, she talked about
farmers, commercial farmers who failed to actually put in their
own application for allocation and also the treatment of farm workers.
Can you talk to us about some of these issues?
John W. Worswick: Yes
indeed Violet. Can we deal firstly about this particular farm that
has been allocated to her. One's got to look at it against
a background of thousands of farms are lying vacant today not having
been subscribed to or taken up or if they were taken up they've
then been abandoned whether it be by A1 settlers or A2 farmers,
new farmers, in that they didn't have title, they didn't
have the skills to make a success of it. Now surely the government
should focus on reallocation of those farms rather than interfering
with a farm that is productive and has already been downsized. Certainly
that's the situation with the Cremer property, it was substantially
downsized from 900 hectares down to 60 hectares and remains a very
intensive, highly lucrative property, employing over 300 people.
The process itself with
regard to the vetting of beneficiaries for the programme has been
substantially flawed in that according to the Land Acquisition Act
a board should be set up to vet applicants for farms whether A1
or A2 to assess whether they were suitable and had the requisite
skills to farm and not just as Dr Chihombori mentions here that
she had the financial wherewithal. It's interesting also to
note that her sister was an applicant and was turned down more than
likely because she didn't have the financial wherewithal to
do it but certainly the process of vetting has not taken place at
all. It's not being done by the board, it's being done
by a minister who in the law should have no power to issue these
offer letters.
The offer letters themselves,
we've had various legal opinions over the years because of
this are substantially flawed. The fact that there's multiple
offer letters for a single property, there are other properties
that have never had an offer letter issued on them and should have
done highlights the fact it's all so flawed.
With regard to the farm
worker plight on farms, all the more reason for them to reallocate
farms that have already been left or abandoned. We have the issue
of landless peasants not being given these farms, we've had
the political hierarchy and businessmen who have been allocated
the farms, it certainly hasn't gone to the landless peasants
and in many cases where it has gone to A1 settlers, the landless
peasants, they've been displaced from those farms by chefs.
So there's a further injustice in the whole process and all
the time the farm workers are the ones who take the brunt of this.
Statistics show only
25% of the farm workers are still in residence on farms, many of
them refusing to work for the new farmers because it is tantamount
to slave labour. We're talking about a differential today
where existing commercial farmers are using US$30 a month as a minimum
wage and many of them paying more than that if you take into account
rations, that they are given but new farmers are paying two to three,
four dollars either, a lot of them are political chefs and very
wealthy men who are arguing that they can't afford to pay
more than two or three US dollars a month. Some we have of record,
some farm workers who were working to try and hold onto their homes
and having to work for no cash realisation a month, they were driven
into a cashless society and I'll deal with the implications
of that in a moment, they were given a couple of slices of bread
and a cup of tea each day and if they worked the whole month they
were given a bucket, roughly 20 kgs of maize.
The implications of becoming
cashless are very alarming in that they can't benefit from
subsidized education if you don't have any cash for paying
towards putting your kids into school. Likewise on the health service
side you cannot take advantage of medical help through clinics,
what little was left, if you couldn't pay something towards
that so as a cashless society of farm workers and we're looking
at a large number of them, we're looking at 1.5 million people
with their dependents having been displaced off farms, the results
of this are very alarming and when one looks at how it was done,
the illegal eviction of farm workers and it is on going as a current
issue at the moment, farm workers are being evicted off farms it's
tantamount to gross human rights violations, the right to shelter
and a home is a basic human right, the right to work is a basic
human right as well so we're very alarmed about this being
ongoing even in spite of high court orders that have been issued
for those farm workers to stay in situ.
Violet
Gonda: The discussion with Dr Chihombori and John Worsley
Worswick concludes next week where we ask if there are any possible
ways that the farming community brought the land invasions upon
themselves.
Read
Part 2 of this interview
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