Farm saga & Br policy
British Zimbabwean Farm Invasion Exposes Conservative Foreign Policy
ChangeZimbabwe.com – Makusha Mugabe
Thursday, 15 October 2015
L: David Cameron - no policy on Zimbabwe, R: Nyatsuro British farm invader
There can be no clearer condemnation of the Tory Government's policy of accommodating the dictatorial Zanu (PF) government in Zimbabwe than the fact that Grace Mugabe's relative who was given British citizenship is now reported to be seizing a white-owned near Harare.
The Telegraph in the UK has reported that Dr Sylvester Nyatsuro, 45, who runs a slimming clinic in Nottingham, hired a gang to invade Phillip Rankin's tobacco farm a week ago claiming that Robert Mugabe’s government had granted him ownership of the property.
The story brings into sharp focus the policies of Zanu (PF) which have not changed from the murdering of political opponents and white farmers whose farms were coveted by those connected to Zanu (PF).
Phillip Rankin, now a heart patient, is said to be currently held hostage by Dr Nyatsuro's paid thugs on the farm. He is running out of food and medicine. But he is refusing to leave the house because he knows that Zimbabwean police and the courts will not protect him once he has left.
Thousands of white farmers have lost their land in similar way and others were killed, leading to an international outcry and increased sanctions against the Mugabe government by the Labour Government of Tony Blair.
Philip Hammond, foreign secretary - ducking Parliamentary discussion of Zimbabwe?
But under the Conservative/Libdem government the sanctions were watered down and eventually abandoned under David Cameron’s Conservative government even though it was clear that the Mugabe regime remained as repressive, if not worse.
No free and fair elections have been held and Mugabe's soldiers who have been at the forefront of implementing the violent policies have been threatening to harm anyone who opposes Zanu (PF) in elections set for 2018.
Constitutional amendments which were made two years ago at great expense, and which were used as the pretext for the removal of sanctions by the European Union, have not been implemented and the opposition is still facing violent reprisals just for opposing the Zanu (PF) government.
But Zimbabwe seems to have fallen off the Conservative government's radar, so much so that even Zanu (PF) supporters who falsely sort asylum and even became British citizens are now operating openly in the UK in support the Mugabe government.
Nyatsuro, who reportedly went to the UK in 2003 and now holds a British passport, was reported to have recently announced an initiative to establish a database of Zimbabwean professionals in the diaspora, with the backing of the Zimbabwean Presidency.
And other Zanu (PF) supporters in the UK are said to be busy infiltrating opposition structures in the UK, including the Vigil which holds demonstrations outside the Zimbabwean Embassy in London every Saturday.
The Vigil’s activists have been trying to get the UK Parliament to debate the UK's Foreign Policy towards Zimbabwe but so far to no avail as Mr Cameron's foreign secretary Philip Hammond has shown no inclination to bring the debate to Parliament.
Analysts say the reason was not that Mr Hammond was overwhelmed by competing foreign policy interests, but that the Conservatives have actually taken a position to support the Mugabe dictatorship in the belief that the opposition will never succeed in getting Zanu (PF) out of power - so the UK may as well stay onside.
In the meantime this is costing Zimbabweans a lot of suffering in terms of a corrupt and mismanaged economy that is now dragging Zimbabwe towards failed-statehood, with the capital Harare sometimes getting only four hours of electricity, companies closing and most food being imported from South Africa - at prices that are not affordable to most locals.
The lack of a robust international Press in Zimbabwe has also contributed to the lack of reporting about the unbearable conditions that most Zimbabweans are living under.
A spokesman for the Commercial Farmers' Union in Zimbabwe said Mr Rankin was now a ‘hostage’ on his farm as he could not leave the homestead and police were doing nothing to give him any help.
His 110 acres of tobacco crop was in danger of being ruined, costing him up to £240,000 as he cannot irrigate it. Mr Rankin bought his 2,000-acre farm, Kingston, 32 years ago and received a ‘certificate of no present interest’ from the Mugabe government (legal ownership), but he was still forced to give up a third of it for resettlement on the "understanding” that he could continue to farm.
But as land increasingly becomes scarce, with Zanu (PF) bosses taking vast tracts for themselves, there have been multiple attempts to invade and take over the farm, and ironically this time the invasion is coming from a Zimbabwean with British citizenship.
Meanwhile Robert Mugabe's wife has indicated that she wants to take over from him next year and all Zanu (PF) forces are lining up behind her in what has been dubbed the chaos scenario where lawlessness will not allow free and fair elections, not in Zanu (PF), nor in the country as a whole.
Zimbabwe National Army Presidential Guard Commander, Brigadier-General Anselem Sanyatwe, last week threatened to annihilate former vice president Dr Joice Mujuru who has been illegally thrown out of Mugabe’s party to create space for his wife.
Brig-Gen Sanyatwe, according to the independent, told 500 officers of the Presidential Guard on September 2 at the Presidential Guard Barracks in Dzivarasekwa, Harare that they should be ready to fight former vice-president Joice Mujuru who is in the process of setting up a new political party.
The Independent also reported that Brig-Gen Sanyatwe even chanted slogans in support of the ruling Zanu PF, and told the officers that professionalism was over and that, because of things happening in the country, he did not want officers to hear this from the grapevine, (but from their commander, himself) that Zanu PF would rule forever."
The newspaper even produced his verbatim statement in Shona, but Sanyatwe has denied that he ever said so, possibly after realising that he had gone too far in confirming that the military was determining the political fate of Zimbabwe.
But the reality is that the military is doing so, having silenced the opposition in Matebeleland by killing 20 000 civilians, killed more than 200 opposition activists in 2008 elections, and the same commander being quoted saying that the military would be used to clear vendors from Harare streets if they defied calls to clear the streets.
The army, police and intelligence service chiefs, operating under the Joint Operations Command (JOC), have been accused in the forced disappearance of Itai Dzamara an opposition activist who has still not been found.
Section 211 of the Constitution says the defence forces must respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of all persons and be non-partisan, national in character, patriotic, professional and subordinate to civilians as established in the Constitution.
But this constitution is being ignored while the international community is turning a blind eye and the opposition is being intimidated with threats of death and the lawless system continues to be exhibited by Zanu (PF) at all levels.
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