The past week the media has been awash with stories about the American medical doctor who has been trying to take over a farm in Zimbabwe. The insinuation is that because Prime Minister Tsvangirai was seen with this woman at President Zuma’s inauguration then he knows about these things. Many people will remember that when the pictures first appeared there was the suggestion that this could be the Prime Minister’s lover and she was referred as the mystery woman. The Prime Minister’s spokesman then cleared the issue by telling the press that she is the Prime Minister’s niece and that apparently Mr Tsvangirai had no prior knowledge of her presence until they met at the ceremony. You can verify this on http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/primeminister42.19787.html .
However, the media has continued to insinuate that she is not related to Tsvangirai suggesting that the Prime Minister may actually have lied to the people of Zimbabwe. There is a concerted effort to cast shadows on the person of the Prime Minister because of these stories. The media stories are all based on an unnamed MDC source – Zimpapers style. Those who understand the way Zimbabwe’s extended family system works will know that there are no distant relatives because there is no distance in our family relations. The use of the English language to try and explain Zimbabwean relationships is fraught with difficulties. I am not interested in exploring whether Chihombori is related to Mr Tsvangirai or not because this misses the real point in this issue.
There are two outrageous things happening here. The first is that a business person who is living a comfortable and pampered life in America wants to benefit from freebies and to take away land that should, in all fairness, be given to people in Zimbabwe. The second is how a person who has lived outside Zimbabwe for thirty years can be allocated a farm when there are thousands of landless peasants waiting for land. What criteria did Zanu PF use in allocating land to someone who in all but name is essentially a foreigner? Who does this Chihombori know in the top echelons of Zanu PF? Although she may still be Zimbabwean on paper I believe that there are more deserving Zimbabweans than this ‘fat cat’ from USA. One would not be surprised if it emerges that Chihombori secretly holds dual citizenship which is against Zimbabwean law. I urge those in the media to investigate this. No one doubts that there has been need to redistribute land in Zimbabwe since independence. What has been in dispute has been the manner in which Zanu PF went about this. The Chihombori case is yet another example of how those who are well connected or those who can pay those who are well connected have benefited from Zanu PF’s land reform at the expense of those who genuinely needed land. Can Joseph Made and Didymus Mutasa explain how a woman who has not lived in Zimbabwe for thirty years was allocated land? Where is the Pan Africanist Robert Mugabe in all this? This exposes the lie that Zanu PF’s land reform benefited or was meant to benefit ordinary Zimbabweans.
There is a moral question in this whole saga. It is not whether Tsvangirai and Chihombori are related. It is not even whether Tsvangirai knew about the case. The question should be whether it is right that Chihombori was offered a farm in Zimbabwe. This case highlights the need for a Land Commission to look into the way the disastrous land reform was carried out. It is an outrage that those with money could buy their way into owning free land in Zimbabwe when those whose very survival depends on being able to work the land are still stuck in the old ‘Tribal Trust Lands’ of Chihota, Seke, Buhera, etc. Looking at the business portfolio of Dr Chihombori one cannot understand why she needs free land. She can afford to buy and run a farm but may be she shouldn’t. Her love for free things does not bode well for those who will be employed to work on the farm. I personally think that Chihombori is driven by pure greed more than the need to see the historical imbalance in land ownership being corrected. She is making all the right noises about the unfairness of the pre-2000 land ownership but only to disguise the unfairness of her owning land in Zimbabwe ahead of people like my parents or your parents. I sincerely hope that the offer letter to Dr Chihombori will be withdrawn and the land given to ‘real’ Zimbabweans.
Cremmer (the current farm owner) must also realise that he may need to give up part of his farm because Zimbabwe cannot afford to return to the status quo of the pre-2000 years. If it is true that he used words like ‘kaffir’ then he is on the wrong side of history. This sort of Rhodesian mentality does nothing to help the cause of the white farmers. It just gives Zanu PF ammunition to use against them. All Zimbabweans, black and white, deserve to a share of the land but land must not be given to opportunists like Dr Chihombori.
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