12 Maleme Villagers due in court today

A total of 12 villagers from troubled Maleme Village in Matobo North are expected to appear at the Kezi magistrates court this morning facing charges of kidnapping.

The state case against the 12 is that on Sunday the 8th of March 2015 the 12 kidnapped a named security guard who was guarding a farm allocated by government to one Rodrick Mashingaidze. The papers do not state where the kidnappers took their captive to.

However, witnesses who were at the farm on the day of the incident claim that the villagers did not kidnap the said "security guard" but opened the farm gates and ordered him to leave the farm and go back where he came from. A group of chanting villagers is said to have escorted the "evicted" guard to a nearby bus stop to get transport home.

The 12 accused men who are represented by lawyers from the Lawyers For Human Rights were last night given free bail at the police station and ordered to report at 10am today for their trial. A huge crowd is expected at the small court as scores of villagers are reported to have been walking through the night from Natisa Village in Maleme Ranch to Kezi to back their colleagues.

According to reports, the entire village is said to be demanding the police to arrest them as they all took part in the eviction of the said guard. Police details who remain in full force in the area are also reported to be making efforts to block the villagers from going to Kezi for the court case which is likely to be disrupted by the huge crowd expected.

Meanwhile information leaked to the media from highly placed sources within the ruling party who claim to be privy to the police moves claim that a special task team of police has been sent out to investigate the chaos in Maleme. According to the sources, police believe that the resistance in Maleme is being engineered from outside the village by some named suspects in Bulawayo and Gwanda with the help of some believed to be in South Africa and the United Kingdom. The sources claim that arrests of the suspects will be made soon and charged under the Public Order and Security Act.

According to the sources police are said to be hot on the heels of people suspected of printing and distributing Tshirts to the villagers denouncing the land grab in the area.

Villagers attending the Maleme Ranch meetings refused to wear ZANU PF Tshirts which has been the norm every time when land dispute meetings are held through out the country. Maleme Villagers have instead been appearing in traditional Ndebele attire or wearing black and white Tshirts inscribed "Singabantu Asihlonitshwe ezigabeni zethu" (We are people too please respect us in our areas). The Tshirts are said to be slowly making their way through out the Matabeleland region. The source of the Tshirts remains unknown.

"The police suspect that the chaos is well planned and financed by a network of people believed to be in opposition parties working with civic organisations and financed by white commercial farmers who lost their land in the land redistribution exercise," wrote the sources in a tip off.

"The police are have names of people involved in distributing the Tshirts and financing mobilisation from Bulawayo and Gwanda and will be picked up soon," wrote the source who claims to be within ZANU PF but against the allocation of prime land in Matabeleland to Mashingaidze and other CIO officers.

As usual Bulawayo24 news invites witnesses and sources on the ground to continue providing news and information tip offs via the WhatsApp hotline. Efforts are made to verify all tip offs before publication and those that lack evidence are discarded.