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Fear grips rural and peri-urban areas in Zimbabwe
13 Feb 2024 at 15:41hrs | Views
Fear has gripped many rural and peri-urban areas in Zimbabwe after the authorities unleashed a new wave of house demolitions leaving countless families homeless. Already, stranded people are counting their losses in areas including Masvingo and Chipinge. Devastated citizens say they have been reduced to squatters in their own country.
Homesteads, stainstakingly built on the back of immense toil by mostly poverty-stricken Zimbabweans in this tough economy, are being razed to the ground, leaving behind wastelands of rubble. Human rights lawyers say some of the targeted villagers have lived for than 40 years on the land. The government accuses unscrupulous village heads and land barons of illegally selling state land.
Four village heads in Dema, Mashonaland East, have been convicted for selling land illegally in transactions known as "sabhuku land deals". But legal experts say although the problem is quite complex, it largely emanates from the Zanu PF government's refusal to allow black land ownership in rural areas, 44 years after Independence. As a result, 67% of the Zimbabwean population, based in rural areas, is still subjected to a discredited colonial-era arrangement which imposed a legislated state monopoly over land ownership in the countryside.
For reasons of political control and electoral manipulation, the authorities are opposed to the idea of introducing legal title in rural areas, analysts say.
In Chipinge, Manicaland province, the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) is representing 327 villagers from Mahachi and Munyokowere villages accused of illegal occupation.
"In Masvingo province, we have filed an appeal at Masvingo Magistrates' Court seeking to suspend an order for the eviction of some villagers from their ancestral land. The villagers were recently convicted of occupying gazetted land without lawful authority as defined in section 3(1) of the Gazetted Land (Consequential Provisions) Act by Masvingo Magistrate Ivy Jawona and sentenced to serve three months in prison, which was wholly suspended. In addition, Magistrate Jawona ordered the villagers to vacate their land within 7 days," says ZLHR.
The villagers want the High Court to overturn their conviction and set aside their sentence and refer their matter to the Constitutional Court for a determination of the constitutionality of their arbitrary eviction.
Homesteads, stainstakingly built on the back of immense toil by mostly poverty-stricken Zimbabweans in this tough economy, are being razed to the ground, leaving behind wastelands of rubble. Human rights lawyers say some of the targeted villagers have lived for than 40 years on the land. The government accuses unscrupulous village heads and land barons of illegally selling state land.
Four village heads in Dema, Mashonaland East, have been convicted for selling land illegally in transactions known as "sabhuku land deals". But legal experts say although the problem is quite complex, it largely emanates from the Zanu PF government's refusal to allow black land ownership in rural areas, 44 years after Independence. As a result, 67% of the Zimbabwean population, based in rural areas, is still subjected to a discredited colonial-era arrangement which imposed a legislated state monopoly over land ownership in the countryside.
In Chipinge, Manicaland province, the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) is representing 327 villagers from Mahachi and Munyokowere villages accused of illegal occupation.
"In Masvingo province, we have filed an appeal at Masvingo Magistrates' Court seeking to suspend an order for the eviction of some villagers from their ancestral land. The villagers were recently convicted of occupying gazetted land without lawful authority as defined in section 3(1) of the Gazetted Land (Consequential Provisions) Act by Masvingo Magistrate Ivy Jawona and sentenced to serve three months in prison, which was wholly suspended. In addition, Magistrate Jawona ordered the villagers to vacate their land within 7 days," says ZLHR.
The villagers want the High Court to overturn their conviction and set aside their sentence and refer their matter to the Constitutional Court for a determination of the constitutionality of their arbitrary eviction.
Source - newshawks
