The farm
on their land
By
Emmanuel Chinyamakobvu
For decades the land
question remained a topical issue in Zimbabwe.
Two decades after independence in 1980, discontent was now constantly
and increasingly expressed against the Government by the rural population and
war veterans who were staging demonstrations demanding the fulfillment of the
promises made during the liberation war of taking the land from the mainly
white commercial farmers and returning it back to its rightful owners, the
black majority. Inevitably,
contradictions in the Zimbabwean society were coming to a head. For ten years the Lancaster
Then at the turn of the
twenty first century, came the “Jambanja” era, heralding a landmark in
Zimbabwe’s struggle to reclaim its stolen birthright. It was the beginning of the last but most
decisive phase of the straggle, the "Do or Die" stage. The old order was being replaced by the new
order and inevitably some violent skirmishes became part of the “Jambanja”. This
was premised on the fact that reclaiming the land from the white minority was a
matter of national interest worth fighting for and those who challenged it
provoked a fight as what unfortunately often
happens in all such situations.
The British Crown and its Western allies were up in arms against the Government of Zimbabwe. The government was never to be forgiven for daring to take the land from the white minority and giving it back to the people of Svosve. Sanctions were visited upon the people of Svosve by the British Crown and its allies. The western sanctions simply implied that their proponents did not care whether or not the black majority exercised their freedom of choice, independence, right to self-determination, right to their land, right to their economic resources and right to becoming masters of their own destiny. To them, so long as the white minority remained on the land justice was being served. The sanctions broke the will and determination of many a people in those days.
The strategy employed by
the advocates of the sanctions was never to publicly lament the seizure of
farms belonging to the white minority as that would reveal the hand of the
British Crown and its Allies in the scheme of things. But for the people of Svosve,
regaining the ownership of their land was of historic national importance as it
went to define conditions for peace or no peace and violence or no violence in
the country. They decreed the constants, the non-negotiable and the fixed
position of vital national interest that the Second Chimurenga had already
subscribed to. In this regard, anyone working against that national interest
was an enemy of the nation.
Will history deservedly,
condemn or honour for all times the people of Svosve who opened the first battle
front for the Third Chimurenga and soldiered on to the bitterest end regardless
of the obvious hazards and tribulations that lay ahead? If opening the battle front was a mare
beginning, were the people of Svosve capable of undertaking the most difficult
work that was yet to come, the rebuilding of the nation’s agricultural based
economy? Were the land reform
beneficiaries able to confound all predictions and accomplish what was deemed
impossible? The people of Svosve had no
doubt aroused hopes in the eyes of the disposed majority, but were the
consequences worth the trouble?
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