SW Radio Africa news - The Independent Voice of Zimbabwe
A Banket farmer meant to be protected by an investment agreement signed by the Zim government has been illegally evicted from his farm, while some of his workers have been imprisoned for refusing to attend a ZANU PF meeting. Piet Zwanikken, a Dutch national who has been farming on his Riverhead farm for over 15 years, was evicted by a group of war vets said to be working under the leadership of a suspected CIO agent named Charles Mupanduki. The war vets stormed his property last week, damaged his 10 tractors and ordered his workers to attend a political meeting. When some of the workers refused there was a standoff with the war vets, leading to Banket police being called in. Instead of arresting the war vets for illegally invading the farm, 10 of Zwanikken’s workers were arrested for “inciting violence.” Zwanikken, who as a Dutch farmer is meant to be protected by a Bilateral Investment Protection and Promotion Agreement (BIPPA), signed by Zimbabwe and the Netherlands, has faced threats, intimation and violence for almost two years. Last December he escaped a potential fatal shooting, after a land invader shot him in the face. The bullet, shot at close range, went through his nose and grazed his cheek. The man behind the invasions, Mupanduki, has attempted to take over the farm on several occasions since handing Zwanikken an ‘offer letter’ last January. In August last year, a few months before he was shot, Zwanikken lost thousands of dollars worth of farming equipment when the land invaders successfully took over the property for a few days. The farmer eventually had to get a court order to force the invaders off his land. John Worsley-Worswick, from Justice for Agriculture (JAG), told SW Radio Africa that he is not surprised by this latest land grab, saying “you can’t rely on any of the assurances of protection made recently by the government.”“They’ve said in recent weeks that they won’t target BIPPA farmers, but they said this at the same time that Piet Zwanikken was under threat, so you can’t rely or believe what is being said,” the JAG official said. Another farmer, Rolf Forrester of Cambria Farm near Banket, also had his operations disturbed by unknown people, reportedly at the instigation of the same top government official. Worsley-Worswick said that scores of others farmers are under pressure to give up their properties, blaming “a lack of planning by the government about where to go with agriculture now.”“Agriculture should be the main thing being supported to fix the economy and feed people. But there is no protection of farmers or anything,” he said.