Mr land grab

Zimbabwe's co-Home Affairs Minister, who already owns a huge farm across a vast swathe of the Beitbridge countryside, has been accused of gross nepotism after grabbing more land from neighbouring resettled farmers and giving it to his son and nephew.

Minister Kembo Mohadi has been a major player in the land invasions, which started in 2000. He has been previously blamed for other land seizures and has been named in various reports as one of the high-profile multiple farm owners in Zimbabwe.

Mohadi was accused last year by the Commercial Farmers Union of being behind an invasion of a lodge on Benlynian Game Ranch, near the South African border.

President Robert Mugabe and most of his senior Zanu-PF officials, including ministers and politburo members, as well as top civil servants and state security chiefs, have seized many farms, making them Zimbabwe's new land barons. The farms were grabbed from white commercial farmers hounded out without compensation or forced to work on smaller pieces of land.

Mohadi has always featured in land disputes, although he has denied responsibility. In the latest dispute, the minister is being accused of using a gun to threaten local resettled farmers and villagers.

One of the disposed local farmers told the Sunday Times this week Mohadi had bulldozed his way in and seized their plots, which border Zvovhe Dam, leaving them landless and without means of survival.

Mohadi apparently displaced the farmers alongside the dam because he wanted to have a monopoly on its water facilities and fishing.

The wary disposed farmer said: "Mohadi has threatened my mother with a gun. He has visited our land many times and even shot a dog, saying he was untouchable. He will kill people on the farm and nothing would happen to him."

Mohadi refused to comment and police said they did not know about the invasion, although they had apparently sat in meetings to discuss it .

The resettled farmers, some war veterans and conservationists, say they have been trying to ward off Mohadi's move to displace them in Beitbridge for a long time, but are losing the fight because they do not have political back-up.

The farmers have been battling the Mohadi family for some time and at one time the minister's wife, Tambudzani, was involved in clashes with them. The shaken farmers had to seek a court order against her.

They have written a letter to the Matabeleland South war veterans' chapter seeking help, and saying Mohadi wanted to parcel out their land to his son, Campbell Junior, and his nephew, Danisa Muleya.

They said Mohadi, who occupies a huge farm on Lot 10, which he grabbed from a white farmer, had been pushing for the seizure of their plots since 2009. This led to the redrawing of the boundaries of the adjacent Lot 9, from which the farmers were displaced.

Another farmer said: "The district administrator (Simon Muleya), working with the minister, changed the boundaries of our plots and, as a result, they were reduced from about 34 to 23, leading to the displacement of some of us.

"So the minister has taken the land around the dam and part of the land adjacent to the plots surrounding the water. We know he is going to give that land to his son and nephew," the farmer said.

"He is abusing his political office and influence. Even if we report these issues to the police, they do nothing, because he is directly their boss as the minister in charge of police."

The farmers said it was unfair, because the Mohadi family already owned vast tracts of land.

Muleya said the issue was being dealt with by the provincial land committee. The farmers, however, say both the district and provincial land committees have said the redrawing of the boundaries of Lot 9 was null and void and should be reversed, and that Mohadi and his allies were defying that.

The farmers said they had been offered alternative land but they refused. This infuriated Mohadi and his supporters, who went on to erect a 1.4m-high fence, dividing their land, they said. While some were fenced-off, other farmers were cut off from their water supply from the dam.

An audit to resolve land problems has been stalled by disputes.