David Chiguvare, who spent years slogging away on a white-owned farm outside Harare, is now living the dream of being his own boss, courtesy of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's land reforms.
While Mugabe's scheme has been widely blamed for triggering the collapse of the economy, Chiguvare has nothing but praise for his efforts to redress the land ownership imbalance.
"For many of us, the land reforms were a dream that came true and it took a brave leader like President Mugabe to do it. He is a hero," the 42-year-old said as he recalled the days when he was at the beck and call of his employers.
"I was doing all the work on the ground literally running the farm on behalf of my employer," he said.
"Every year my employer took his family on a two-month holiday to Europe, leaving me in charge. Each time he returned and saw everything swinging but all I got was a pat on the back for a job well done," he said.
Employing 110 full-time workers and hiring hands from a neighboring shanty-town, Chiguvare grows wheat, tobacco, soya beans and corn on his Bunkers' Hill farm, just south of Harare.
But critics say much of the land either ended up in the hands of his cronies or with people who had neither the skills nor the tools to succeed.
Once the region's breadbasket, supplying wheat to countries such as Zambia and Malawi, Zimbabwe's agricultural sector has gone into a nosedive since the start of the decade when expropriations began.
Some 4.1 million people -- nearly one-third of the population -- are now in need of food aid, the UN World Food Program has said.
Victims of the land reforms hold Mugabe responsible and are determined to end his 28-year rule at elections this weekend.
Ian Kay, forced off his farm six years ago, is vying for a parliamentary seat on behalf of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
Kay said he does not want to just turn the clock back to the days when all the best land was in white hands. A thorough review of the badly flawed land reforms is necessary, however, he said.
While Kay now imports coal, he wants to return to his old farm, south of Marondera.
"I was born there, my parents are buried there. The land was paid for, the developments that are there: we did them," he said.
For Chiguvare however, any such move would be a slap in the face to veterans of the 1970s liberation war, many of whom took part in invasions of the white-owned farms.
"This is what the whole liberation war was about and we cannot go back to the situation which led the heroes of this country to take up arms," he said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS