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Daylight
robbery in Hippo Valley
Grieg
Henning
January 13, 2006
This article
was first published in the Mail & Guardian (SA) on January 13,
2006
A farmer
watches as his farm is looted by the police and army he expected
to protect him
It’s Friday
afternoon, November 18, 2005 on my farm at Chiredzi. At 3:15pm it’s
still sweltering. That is why it is such a good place to grow sugar
cane. I am alerted by the dogs barking. Filled with dread, I just
know it’s the police/army group, which grandly calls itself the
"Farm Material and Equipment Procurement Committee", which
has seized farming equipment in the run-up to the festive season.
I thought we
had done enough legally to stop them taking ours. A few minutes
pass. My hands grow clammy, my thoughts race to the violence of
2003: I had been assaulted by war veterans; was hijacked by land
grabbers; arrested at gunpoint by the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP).
The police had not protected me then and now they were about to
ransack me. On a similar Friday afternoon in 2003, my yard had swarmed
with war vets and I had to run into the sugar cane fields to escape
them. What now?!
My clerk buzzed.
Yes, the police and army are here. They are inside the security
fence. They want to see me. Now.
In the previous
fortnight, six of my fellow farmers in Hippo Valley, two of whom
are neighbours, had almost all their equipment plundered by this
committee. Tractors, cane haulage trailers, centre pivots, irrigation
pipes, pumps, motors, implements and all sorts of other items were
loaded on to police trucks by an enormous army mobile crane and
by numerous convicts drafted from the local prison. Everything was
ferried to Chiredzi police station and stashed to be plundered later.
No documents
Now it looks
as if it is my turn to be cleaned out, for no other reason, it later
transpired, than for the looters to enrich themselves. No ideology
here!
Police, soldiers,
government land officials and war vets wait for me at the workshop.
Perhaps 20 or more, some armed, all glowering.
Do I see anger?
Hatred? Contempt? It is an admixture with more than a hint of triumph,
as if they have finally caught up with an escaped criminal.
ZRP Assistant
Commissioner Loveness Ndanga, head of the "procurement committee",
introduces herself. She informs me she and her crew have come to
collect all the equipment they had inventoried (illegally, by the
way!) in May. Everyone has moved closer and I find myself surrounded
by this hostile throng. I have to be calm, cautious. I politely
ask whether she has the necessary documentation to remove the equipment
and is she going to pay me for it first? "No documents",
she replies. She is following her "chain of command",
and the "nitty-gritties could be sorted out" at the police
station "later".
Ndanga asks
whether I have any objections. I would prefer to see proper procedure
and first get the documentation, I tell her. She insists she will
instead be collecting the equipment immediately. Was I about to
stop them loading, she asked threateningly?
I reply that
she has armed police, soldiers and others by her side. Being unarmed
and outnumbered 20 to one, I am physically unlikely to prevent her
from loading my possessions. I express concern, though, that she,
as a law-enforcement officer, was taking the law into her own hands.
Ndanga’s only acknowledgement is to demand the keys to the tractors
so that her crew could start removing machinery while we continue
to talk.
I appeal to
her to delay her actions for three more days until the matter, which
had been set down, could be heard in the high court. In response,
she turns her back and ignores me.
Sick to my stomach
I thought
that the knowledge and sight of this self-same committee looting my
neighbours during the previous two weeks would have conditioned me
as to what to expect. Instead, I am sick to my stomach.
That menacing, monster crane, as high as a howitzer, growls into action,
their lorries ease into position. The disgraceful spectacle of government
agents, bureaucrats and members of the armed forces plundering my
equipment is almost too disgusting for me to behold. My mechanic,
clerk, security guard, garden staff, have lined themselves along the
fence, folding their arms tightly against their bodies. They are visibly
stunned, embarrassed, and helpless. One is silently weeping.
As I watch,
I think to myself, what cynical solution is this to solving the
country’s food shortages? In which nation on Earth is it part of
the culture to behave in this manner? And then get away with it
with no one to disapprove it? Am I observing state-sponsored theft?
How deeply ingrained is it? If the civil service has sunk so low,
how will Zimbabwe ever extricate herself from the morass?
While my thoughts
race, I am not hostile at all. What, indeed, can I do? They start
to relax and I am able to use the new mood and record the event
on video once more.
I feel like
Alice in Wonderland. Unless you were actually witnessing it, who
would actually believe this could happen in modern society? Whereas
there is a Constitution giving me a chance to uphold my rights and
although I have won every case in court, the realties on the ground
make me dance to an awful tune.
As I film their
scowling faces, they kept their voices low, while they load the
tools of my trade. They seem slightly ashamed. The years of abuse
by officialdom, and my deep Christian faith, have inured me.
Hours later,
the loaders regain their confidence and overcome their embarrassment.
They become more vociferous, shouting instructions to each other.
The next day when they return, they are more eager about the task.
My best tractor, the most valuable one, the one they use to help
the others remove my assets, is less happy. It now has a whine in
the gearbox, a noise in the differential. I fret they must be using
it at high speed in four-wheel drive.
Nobody wins
The police
tire of their task. They seem sated. They have removed enough to cripple
any efforts I have in mind to continue farming or contracting. We
repair to the police station to discuss the "nitty-gritties"
Ndanga talked of. I am met by a phalanx of police officers, sneering
at me when I enter the room. I know this tactic. I have seen it often
enough. It’s meant to intimidate, to obstruct. The meeting lasts but
a few minutes. They march out en masse, protesting that I have raised
"a land issue".
Our guardians
the police have failed us. They have abandoned their moral and lawful
duty. When we see them on the beat, we do not see a friendly "Bobby"
upholding our safety. We see a betrayal of what is right. They are
systematically taking away our livelihood, dividing and distributing
what already exists to those who cannot use it. In the end, there
are only losers.
Sequel
The High
Court in Harare granted us a provisional order to on November 21 2005
- two days after the seizures, compelling the Zimbabwe Republic Police
to return all our equipment immediately. The final order was made
by the High Court on December 2 last year. Nothing has been returned.
The police distributed the equipment among themselves and party hacks.
They have removed it out of Chiredzi and are now in contempt of court.
Government Lands
Officer Mukonyora arrived at the yard gate on January 6. Imperiously
waiving a sheet of paper, he demanded entry in order to seize the
premises including the workshops, and to hand our homestead over
to a Miss Matsvayi, a "favoured new lady-farmer". Would
it be reprisal? The brave security guard sent them packing.
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