Zulu chief opposes white farmers’ eviction
A ZULU chief has come to the defence of a white couple who are threatened with eviction from their tourist lodge in Zimbabwe.
Carol Davies, who was forced to give up most of the 12,000-acre farm her grandfather founded, is fighting to keep control of the newly renovated lodge on top of a sacred mountain in what remains of her land.
She went to the High Court in Bulawayo this week to stop her eviction and is being supported by Chief Felix Nhlanhlayamangwe Ndiweni, head of the largest tribal area in Zimbabwe.
“The reason I want them there is because this family was chosen decades ago to be custodians of this sacred mountain, and they have done a sterling job, and kept the mountain sacred for our people,” said the chief.
“I am continuing with the wishes of the late paramount chief who died in 2010 after 71 years in power. Our heritage goes back a long way and our traditional wishes cannot be ignored.”
Over the past 20 years, some 90 per cent of Zimbabwe’s white farmers have been evicted as part of a forced land re- settlement programme started by Robert Mugabe, the former president.
Mrs Davies’s grandfather, Jack Parsons, originally bought and worked the land containing the sacred hill, about 12 miles from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city.
His holding was split up 14 years ago and handed to Mr Mugabe’s supporters, but Mrs Davies and her husband Brian remained on a small part.
Now Floyd Ambrose, a mixed-race man from Bulawayo, wants the lodge. He worked for the Davies family years ago, and they then allowed him to use the lodge as a tourist resort, but that failed, and he left it a wreck.
The Davies family moved back again and did considerable renovations. Now Mr Ambrose says he wants the lodge and, with the support of the lands department, has ordered the couple out.
Asked for comment, Mr Ambrose said: “I don’t know what you are talking about. The courts will decide this.”
Most evicted farmers have failed to persuade the courts they should stay on their land, but Mr and Mrs Davies say they have to remain hopeful.
Chief Ndiweni, who lived in the UK for more than 20 years, said evictions of white farmers in Zimbabwe had been “a crying shame and a tragedy”.
“Zimbabwe is our home. We don’t ever want to leave. We don’t have other passports,” said Mrs Davies. Her solicitor, David Coltart, the former education minister during Zimbabwe’s 2009 unity government and a long-time human rights activist, said that the eviction of the Davies family was “ridiculous”.
He noted that President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who ousted Mr Mugabe in a coup nearly 18 months ago, had previously pledged that the land invasion era was over.
“This is now a tourist facility, near Bulawayo’s airport and not a farm any longer,” he said.