Police thwart Zanu-PF mob

POLICE have moved in to halt the ongoing invasion of farms on the outskirts of Bulawayo by a group of Zanu-PF activists.

There were running battles yesterday when police descended on Norwood Farm, about 15km along the Bulawayo-Nyamandlovu Road when the law enforcement agents ordered about 300 invaders to vacate the land they occupied last month.

Some invaders could be seen boarding trucks leaving the farm after being chucked out by the police.

The Zanu-PF supporters invaded the farm claiming that it was unoccupied before parcelling land among themselves and burning vast tracts of bushes to clear land for building their structures.

Most of the settlers are from Bulawayo, while others are from as far as Mashonaland.

When a Southern Eye crew visited Norwood yesterday, the situation was very tense and appeared potentially volatile as the settlers waited to be addressed by their leaders on the way forward.

They threatened to stone the news crew and advanced menacingly towards the car shouting that the photographer should stop taking pictures.

Other invaders that had been removed from the farm by the police yesterday said they were in a predicament and did not know what to do.

"Some of our members left yesterday for Bulawayo. It is very sad to be evicted from this place. I have lost a considerable amount of my time here clearing land and raising money to build my shelter. We hope our leaders will find ways of ensuring that we are allowed back to the land they gave us," said an invader who declined to be identified.

Southern Eye also visited other farms, Sly and Martin close to Nyamandlovu which the police had also swooped on ordering the invaders off.

The news crew did not stay long as the invaders were hostile accusing the media of setting the cops on them.

The leader of the Zanu-PF invaders, Tariro Magovanyika, told this paper on Tuesday that they had taken over Sly Farm and settled hundreds of people.

Yesterday Magovanyika denied that police had ordered them to vacate the occupied farms.

"It is true that police visited Norwood on Tuesday, but not to evict the people. They had not gone to evict the people, but to warn people against burning bushes," Magovanyika said.

He said the running battles between cops and settlers at Norwood Farm were due to a "minor misunderstanding with the police when they came and said people should stop burning the bushes".

He said the Norwood Farm settlers would stay put in invaded farms despite being ordered off the land by the police.

Bulawayo police refused to comment about the evictions and referred Southern Eye to national police spokesperson Chief Superintendent Paul Nyathi, but his mobile phone rang unanswered.

Magovanyika and his group first invaded the council-owned Mazwi sanctuary, before turning to other farms in the Umguza constituency.

He said they had opened a command centre at Sly Farm where co-ordination of land grabs would be done.

Bulawayo High Court judge Justice Nokuthula Moyo last month gave the council the green-light to destroy structures built by some war veterans at Hyde Park Estates near Mazwi after ruling that the invasion of the property was illegal.

Magovanyika and Mark Muunganirwa appeared in court on August 26 facing charges of criminal trespass for their role in the Mazwi invasion.

They were not asked to plead when they appeared before Western Commonage magistrate Tancy Dube-Chipumha, who remanded them out of custody to September 9 on their own cognisance.