ZIMBABWE - Destruction of wildlife, the environment and sensitive eco-systems

ABUJA, THE COMMONWEALTH AND BUBIANA

Bubiana, in response to the cry for land two years ago, set aside 160,000 acres for CAMPFIRE, whereby local communities could benefit from the sustainable utilisation of the wildlife, receiving money and meat from the tourism and hunting on the conservancy. They also offered land that has the potential to be irrigated for the resettlement of 300 families. Guy Hilton-Barber, Vice Chairman of the Conservancy, points out, 'This gave them the opportunity to move away from the traditional and hopeless land tenure systems towards those that could alleviate poverty.'

Months of negotiations ensued and finally government agreed to the proposals. A number of squatters were removed from Bubiana and relocated on the allocated land in April this year. However, the bulk of the invaders were left untouched and the plundering increased.

Following the signing of the Abuja Accord in September, a group of Commonwealth ministers came to Zimbabwe to oversee the government's adherence to the agreement. During a speech to the assembled dignitaries on October 27th, 2001, Governor Josiah Hungwe, informed his listeners, 'The latest instructions from above are that nobody should be found squatting on ungazetted properties, in terms of the law. The exercise to remove these people from farms and from conservancies has started and police and army trucks have started removing people, as I speak, due to the government regulations. The operation is going smoothly. There should be no friction…People must stick to the law under which we operate and acquire farms.'

Back on Bubiana the squatters were indeed being put onto army and police trucks and taken out of the conservancy (squatters on other conservancies in the country were unaffected). It became apparent that Hungwe's sudden decision to act when he did was merely a gesture to support his political rhetoric to the Ministers of the Commonwealth. There had been minimal preparation for the evacuation, Agritex had not pegged out the new plots on the land specially set aside for the squatters by the conservancy; and the squatters themselves appeared ignorant of what was planned, and confused by the sudden demand to leave their huts. The whole operation ended in complete fiasco. Hilton-Barber was as surprised as the squatters to see the police support unit arriving in their trucks. 'The idea was to move the people when their new plots had been prepared. I fully expected that they would be staying here another 6 or 8 months until after they'd reaped their crops, but to our total astonishment, the forces arrived and were instructed to load them onto trucks and burn their houses - the place was just a pall of smoke. It looked like a war zone.'

The squatters were taken to a holding point from where they were supposed to be taken to their newly allocated land. After nine days sitting in the hot sun without adequate water or shelter, the squatters were still waiting. As news of the evacuation filtered back to Harare, it appeared that Governor Hungwe had acted without the knowledge of the MPs for the region, or of Governor Cephas Msipa under whose jurisdiction the other half of Bubiana falls. The Deputy Minister for Home Affairs, Regare Gumbo, who is also the local MP for the area, ordered the squatters back to Bubiana. Thus, on November the 8th, a week after the Commonwealth delegation had left Zimbabwe, assured that people were being moved off the land, they were now being moved back by the truckload.