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| Photo cred: financialgazett.co.zw |
The government officials approached Robert and his family as they were coming from their fields and informed them that they could not go back into their fields ever again indefinitely. Their fields which cover about six hectares of good fertile land in an area that receives average annual rainfall of around 818mm were already green with a variety of crops such as maize, groundnuts, peanuts e.t.c that they had already planted when the rainy season begun in the country. Robert was told that the area was now protected and if any of his family members wandered off into the fields they would be considered trespassers and action would be taken against them and Robert understood exactly what the officials meant by that statement and so he complied.
It wasn't a decision to be challenged and to Robert and his family it was an order coming from an authority that they would dare not challenge for fear for their very own lives. Five other families in the area are also being relocated together with Robert's family under the same conditions and possibly to the same location in Gokwe. The only thing Robert managed to ask in his distress was about his family's grave yard. A total of twenty eight graves occupy the place including that of his daughter who passed away at the age of two just some two months ago. The officials told them they would have to dig up the graves themselves, exhume the remains and the government would assist them in burying them in a new location. "We will even contract Doves Morgan ( a funeral parlour) to assist with the tents and other necessities they usually provide at funerals" so he was told. He was also told that the government will provide the coffins and food for the ceremonies if need be. One thing that was clear as a cut diamond was that the graves had to go.
According to Robert, the officials have already provided security for the area that is present twenty four -seven and the movements of everyone in the area is now being monitored closely until the relocation is effected.
Robert has a family of seven, his wife and six children mostly of school going age. He works in a certain town in Mashonaland and goes back to his homestead in Mutare when he is off duty. When he is off from work he tills the land and farms to supplement his meager income that he gets from his menial job. He has no education and so does his wife. He was born in Mutare where his homestead is and took over part of the homestead from generations of Taperas that occupied the land before him where most of them were buried as well. He also told me of another family's homestead in the area where the government set up a water pipe line that draws water from a nearby dam and runs through the front yard of the family's home to the diamond processing plant that is already being established.
As I spoke to him I could tell that he is a man thoroughly convinced that there is nothing that can be done to turn the situation around. He and five other families were getting orders from very powerful people with very influential positions in the country whose authority can not be questioned. They could also not protest to the decision since they hold no titles to the communal lands they occupy in fact no one holds any titles to "their" land if they occupy communal lands in Zimbabwe. Many at times the rural folk are at the mercy of the final authority in those lands which are usually the chiefs except in special cases such as Robert's case.
Robert's case is sadly one in thousands of cases of a similar nature where people are disposed of their lands and homes for the sake of "economic progress" in Zimbabwe and Africa. Many families are displaced from their lands without a voice. Their pleas and cries of protest go unheeded if uttered at all and in some situations lives are lost if by any chance the occupants of that land make any attempt to resist. These peasant farmers are forced to relocate without any regard for their community, social values and culture, neither is there any regard for the emotional stress and strain placed upon them as they are forced to exhume their loved ones they have since laid to rest. There is also no consideration made concerning the children in those families and their basic needs such as shelter and education. Normally it takes months for a relocated family to adjust to their new environment and sometimes if the conditions of living have changed drastically they might never fully adjust but rather just make do with the situation.
The disheartening thing is that after displacing these groups of people from their communities they realize no tangible long term benefit from the "economic activities" carried out on their lands. It doesn't matter whether they are minerals or oil, history has taught us here in Africa that the people that inhabit the areas where these resources are found always face the same predicament. Their communities remain largely impoverished and remain so whilst the big corporations operating in these places record huge profits in their financials yet these resources are depleting and after they are gone the corporations pack their tools and forsake the barren poisoned lands in search of new "opportunities".
Any reasonable man would deem it exigent to question the value of our undertakings (not only as governments or corporations but as the whole human race) especially when they do not empower the said owners of the resources exploited in the same undertakings.
