CHISHAWASHA — The fiery-dark Cumulonimbus clouds building up in the skies showed the heavens were set to open up generously anytime soon and this was good news for farmers in Goromonzi, a prime agricultural area located 28km south-east of the capital Harare.
The farmers’ anticipation was understandable for a country that is reeling from an El Niño-induced drought, which has left three quarters of Zimbabwe’s 15 million people in need of food aid, according to the World Food Programme.
But for 96-year-old Samson Chimombe, the onset of the rainy season was sad news.
Chimombe was not sure whether to plant crops or not.
In fact, what worries him more is if the showers will spare him when he will be left with no roof over his head any time soon.
“The rains do not denote good news to me . . . I am not going to plant this year and very soon I will be evicted without alternative land and accommodation or compensation,” says the visually-impaired nonagenarian, stuttering, his voice mixed with emotion.
“I will be chucked out from our ancestral land which I was born and bred on, and which I have called home ever since.”
Chimombe, from Chikerema Village, ward 15 in Goromonzi North, is among 1 600 Chishawasha families that are facing eviction by the Society of Jesus, popularly known as the Jesuits.
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The Jesuits are pushing for an urbanisation project which will see the creation of low, medium and high-density residential areas.
The Jesuits are an arm of the Roman Catholic Church consisting of priests and brothers founded half a millennium ago.
They have subdivided the 4 000-hectare Chishawasha Farm — which houses St Dominic’s High School and thousands of the villagers like Chikerema — for a housing project.
Ten hectares are already under urbanisation development as roads and other amenities are underway.
The housing project lies adjacent to St Dominic’s Girls High in the farm in Mashonaland East province.
“This is the only place I have called home the whole of my life, but the worst thing is we are being told to move because the Jesuits want to build houses,” Chimombe added.
“Yet, it is our forefathers in the late 1890s that gave Jesuits land to settle on. In turn, they left us with a bible in our hands while they took our land.”
A recent visit to the area showed a sorry state, where some villagers’ houses were surrounded by mounds of gravel and sand and were now inaccessible as graders, bulldozers, caterpillars and other earth moving equipment are busy ravaging the earth and constructing roads.
Chimombe’s homestead is among many that have been affected so far as the road has been closed by the developer.
As an elderly person with a weakened immunity, he is susceptible to diseases and has a medical condition which requires him to visit the hospital regularly.
The closure of the road to his homestead is a stumbling block for the car which ferries him to medical facilities.
“I go for check-up every month and the car that picks me up cannot access my homestead. Our ancestral land has been taken by the Jesuits. We welcomed them in this area long back and accommodated them, before they turned against us,” Chimombe said.
At the time of our visit, Chimombe’s wife was ill and sleeping in their grass thatched house.
Two weeks later, we were informed that his wife eventually passed on.
Another affected villager, Ignatius Chikerema (82), claimed they were not told where they would be relocated.
And neither were they given compensation.
“We just saw graders coming and clearing roads. We were not told where we will be relocated. We have not been given compensation for our properties. They just promised to pay us, but when and how, we do not know at the moment,” he said.
However, the managing director for the company created by the Jesuits, Chishawasha Land Project (Pvt) Ltd, Isaac Chimbetete, said everything they were doing was above board.
He said they engaged the villagers and they would only compensate those that settled in the farm before the year 2000.
“We have title deeds, permits from the ministry of lands, Goromonzi Rural District Council and Environmental Management Agency. To this effect we contracted Forit Contractors to develop the area as we prepare massive urbanisation,” Chimbetete said.
“We have engaged the villagers and we will only recognise, relocate and compensate the original Chishawasha villagers, not land invaders that came into the farm after the year 2000.
“We do have a resettlement plan, and those that are in the development corridors, where we intend to create roads, we told them not to plant crops, and we will give them food handouts.”
He also said they had done assessments to determine the quantity of amounts to be compensated to the villagers for their properties, including fruit trees.
“We will give each family of the recognised Vashawasha bags of maize, which will be once-off. We have a register of people who deserve compensation,” he said.
“Others are not genuine Vashawasha people, but squatters. We have to be strict on vetting who is a Mushawasha and who is not.
“Currently we are constructing 44 houses for the first group of people to be relocated.”
He said at every household, they would compensate one person — the eldest — despite a family having more than one sibling.
A female member of a child-headed family set to be affected by the eviction, who spoke on condition of anonymity fearing retribution, said there were many siblings in their family and giving only one family member was unfair and divisive.
Their house is surrounded by gravel left behind by the contractor, which is making it difficult for them to access their homestead.
The house is cracking due to blasting from the ongoing road constructions
One of the major roads cuts across through their homestead and gravel is pilling on their round kitchen hut.
However, Chimbetete said some original Vashawasha villagers were skipped because when they were doing enumeration, some family had feuds and omitted other genuine beneficiaries.
“We will consider such villagers, even siblings who are women, but now married somewhere. Even orphans, we will choose one beneficiary from the family, who is the oldest,” he said.
In a petition addressed to the Office of the President and Cabinet, the local parish priest, the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission, the Roman Catholic Pope Francis Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Local Government ministry, Mashonaland East Provincial Affairs minister Aplonia Munzverengi and the Catholic Commission for Peace and Justice in Zimbabwe, the villagers listed a number of issues they want addressed.
Among the demands, the villagers wanted an immediate stop to the ongoing construction; decent burial of the natives who were allegedly massacred by the white settlers in the 1890s; development of two-acre plots for every native who has attained 18 years of age and compensation for the families whose infrastructure and assets are being affected by the Jesuits urbanisation programme before being moved.
In 1892, about 200 Vashawasha people were allegedly murdered by the settlers and buried in a mass grave close to present day St Dominic’s Secondary School.
Seventeen of the massacred people were allegedly buried close to a huge tree.
The villagers claimed the developer damaged part of a sacred stone at Nzvere, which is spiritual to the Vashawasha people.
There was no apology or communication on the damage.
However, Chimbetete said they had engaged the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe to have the sacred areas be protected.
Zimbabwe Jesuits head, Father Fidelis Mukonori, whom the villagers accuse of being the mastermind of the housing project, conceded that the development was going on against all odds as they had title to the land.
“Who are the holders of the title deeds?” Mukonori quipped when asked about the tiff with the villagers.
Munzverengi, when called for comment, professed ignorance over the evictions.
“I have not heard about the evictions, but I will look into it and get back to you,” she said.
During a donation and handover of a bus and 15 computers to Chishawasha Primary School in 2011 by the late former President Robert Mugabe, the former head of State told the gathering that the Vashawasha people would not be displaced from their area.
Mugabe had been invited by Mukonori, who doubled as his adviser.
Villagers claim the former President was directly instructing Mukonori to respect Vashawasha people.
During the time, there were fears that the Vashawasha people would be relocated to Gokwe.
In an audio and video in our possession, Mugabe, who was a devout Catholic, warned against displacing the villagers.
The pending evictions come at a time when Finance minister Mthuli Ncube recently announced at a meeting with diplomats that government would compensate displaced white and local farmers whose land was redistributed at the the turn of the millennium during the chaotic land reform programme.
On their website, adorned with a picture of Pope Francis, the Jesuits — founded by the “soldier-turned-mystic Ignatius Loyola” claim they “seek to find God in all things” and “dedicate ourselves to the greater glory of God and the good of all humanity”.
But for Chimombe and many other villagers who are set to be evicted, ‘God is not in the Jesuits’ housing project.
“Such a move is shocking to us as it is coming from people who place high value on Christianity beliefs, norms and values. If it were other developers treating us that way, we would not be surprised,” one villager said, on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. — Humanitarian Media Focus on Zimbabwe
