Christmas from hell: Zimbabwe white farmers reportedly evicted over festive season
Farmer was born at Masvingo General Hospital in 1957, has a Zimbabwean citizenship, paid a total of $350 000 for the farm
Zimbabwean born white farmer was settled on farm by President Mugabe
A WHITE couple has reportedly lost a commercial farm in the Lowveld area of Triangle following a lengthy ownership battle.
Efforts to kick out Shane and Denise Warth off Mpapa Farm, outside Triangle in the Lowveld, started in 2018 and the fight has been on since then.
New Year’s Day spelt doom for the couple as they packed their belongings into vehicles to pave way for new owner, Solicitor Mutendi, who pitched up at the Warth’s farm in 2018 armed with an offer letter.
Shane and Denise Warth of Mpapa Farm, outside Triangle in the Lowveld have lost their 5 year battle to keep their farm and have been kicked out to make way allegedly for one Cde Solicitor Mutendi who pitched up at the Warth’s farm in 2018 armed with an “Offer” letter.
King Jay
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We were forcibly moved off our farm over Christmas. Thank you to those many people who came to help us! God help us now.
Denise Warth
How Shane & Denise Warth Got Mpapa Farm
According to Shane Warth, who worked for Triangle as an artisan specialising in refrigeration for 17 years, the scheme(to buy farms) was meant for Triangle employees who worked for the company for more than 10 years and were below the age of 50.
“We were made to pay an initial down payment of $8 000 and the rest was supposed to be paid in 15 years. We paid a total of $350 000 for the farms which have between 40 and 50 hectares. The programme, which was officially launched by the former President Robert Mugabe was carried out in two phases and the first had only nine farmers. The second one had eight other farmers, and out of the seventeen resettled farmers, only four were white,” Warth said.
“What is mind-boggling is that others are being protected by BIPPA, but I was born at Masvingo General Hospital in 1957 and I have a Zimbabwean citizenship. I feel I should enjoy the benefits of the country like any other Zimbabwean, but I am treated as an outcast with no protection. I mean I am being persecuted like the Jews during the Second World War. “
Warth added: “We resettled like any other Zimbabwean and Robert Mugabe the former President officiated at the ceremony, but now I am told to move out of the farm. Where do I go now? This is where I call my home and I invested everything in it. So recently I bought a transformer in South Africa for $10 000 before I installed a centre pivot at a cost of $140 000.”
Warth is going to lose all his farming equipment, vehicles, a three-bed-roomed house including the newly acquired centre pivot and a one hectare banana plantation, while Bradfield is also set to lose his farming equipment and an 11-roomed house.
as reported by agencies in 2018
Source: Online
Below is some reports from 2018 pertaining to the Triangle farm
2018 zimeye
Latest details gathered by ZimEye.com on the ground in Triangle suggest that the farm invader who was caught on camera taking over Mpapa farm, is in fact a close relative of the Lands And Agriculture Deputy Minister Davis Marapira. The development is also set to rope in President Emmerson Mnangagwa himself as the Bishop Nehemiah Mutendi family is closely connected to the new Head of State.
Hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans (see LIVE stats below) have reacted with shock at the development as it contradicts promises made by the new government upon taking over power barely two months ago.
“The Deputy Minister Marapira’s wife is Mutendi’s aunt,” a source close to the family told ZimEye.com on Saturday.
ZimEye also found out that Mutendi himself is from the Bishop Nehemiah Mutendi’s close circuit family. While Bishop Mutendi officiated at President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s inauguration in November last year, it was not clear at the time of writing if the President is aware and or complicit in the farm invasion.
What seemed to be more telling exposing political hands at play was that despite the Deputy Minister of Agriculture Davis Marapira telephoning the farmer Shane Warth on Friday, it has since emerged that police details on Sunday morning telephoned and demanded that Warth turns up at the Triangle police station to answer for yet to be announced police charges.
Everything happening at present is contrary to what President Mnangagwa himself has vowed – his special advisor Chris Mutsvangwa made a public announcement soon after the Operation Restore Order that the Land Reform is now over.
“Land reform is over. Now we want inclusiveness. All citizens who had a claim to land by birthright, we want them to feel they belong and we want them to build a new country because this economy is shattered,” said Mutsvangwa.
The development filmed on LIVE VIDEO on Thursday saw Zimbabweans in the UK threatening to rope in the British government who have promised Zimbabwe aid. One man wrote saying he was rushing to London to meet Foreign Affairs Secretary Boris Johnson.
The video has since become the most watched Zimbabwean Facebook LIVE video since the Operation Restore Order (in November) now with a swelling 311,000 plus views. ZimEye is making a follow up with the government of Zimbabwe on the case.
The farm owners are Shane and Denise Warth and below is the LIVE video shot earlier, Thursday. ALSO SEE COMMENTS FROM SOME ZIMBABWEANS OVER THE MATTER.
Shane and Denise Warth of Mpapa Farm, outside Triangle in the Lowveld had a man visit them today with the intention of taking over their farm. The family allege that a Mr Solicitor Mutendi is behind the farm takeover.
This kind of Mugabesque behavior will soil the name of the new government and president, the relevant government authorities must put an end to this madness.
Violent land reform seizures were done for over a decade and we know the disastrous results.
Nothing meaningful comes out of such land invasions by envious charlatans who can’t farm but want someone’s hard work and labour on a platter.
There is a lot of land lying idle, why can’t someone interested in serious farming take that type of land.
In Murewa where I come from, these sort of people are keeping goats in the farm houses of the farms they invaded, it tells you all about the type of farming they do.
The president said that agriculture is central to economic recovery, how does the economy recover when we have such people still stuck with the old?
This unruly man and his gang of hoodlums don’t care about this nation and will do anything regardless of how it damages the president and his government.
He represents the dark side still lingering alright, a dark side that will extinguish the nation’s hopes.
Another 2018 report on the matter
Who is this Solicitor Mutendi still invading farms ? Never trust Zanu
New Zimbabwe??!! My mom and Shane getting hassled by people wanting to take away their farm. Nothing being done to help them. This happened this morning. 
Denise Warth Shane Warth Matthew Dalton Justin Dalton Mitchell Dalton Tyrone Warth
Details: Shane and Denise Warth at Mpapa Farm outside Triangle in the lowveld.
Date of video is 4 January 2018.
Mr Solicitor Mutendi from Masvingo is trying to take the farm.
Zimbabwe’s white farmers in trouble again
White farmers in Masvingo continue to face eviction despite moves by President Emmerson Mnangagwa to return some of their land, as part of efforts to revive the ailing agricultural sector which used to be the backbone of the economy.
Recently, four out of 17 farmers resettled in 1989 in Mpapa in Mwenezi under a Triangle Ltd (now Tongaat Hulett) programme, received letters of eviction. They were ordered to wind off business at their 50-hectare farms by the end of this month.
The four had already written to the former Lands and Rural Resettlement minister Douglas Mombeshora, contesting their evictions before change of government last month.
According to eviction letters gleaned by NewsDay Weekender dated October 16 and signed by Boaz Vurayayi the district lands officer for Mwenezi, Shane Warth is being ordered to wind off farming activities on Lot 12 of Lot 15 of NRA by December 31 to make way for Solicitor Mutendi.
The letters stated that the farms were gazetted in 2017 for compulsory acquisition by the Lands and Rural Resettlement ministry on behalf of the government of Zimbabwe and were now State land.
Contacted for comment, Vurayayi referred questions to the provincial lands officer. “You can contact the provincial office, my friend. I am not allowed to talk to the Press,” he said.
Lands and Rural Resettlement deputy minister Davis Marapira said if it was done by the previous government, there was nothing they could do.
“I think it was done by the previous government, but we will need time to get into the details. If it was done by the former minister, there isn’t much we can do. The farmers have to abide by the decision taken by the government at that time,” he said.
When quizzed if this was not in contradiction with the policies of the new government, Marapira said the decision was final.
“Land already allocated will not be reversed unless the current government feels it was wrongly done. If it was done properly, following all the necessary procedures then we call it a done deal,” he added.
The late Carl Bradfield’s widow Ann, of Lot 19 of lot 16 NRA also got her letter of eviction on July 4. Bradfield, who was a cattle rancher and a professional hunter was trampled to death by an elephant, leaving his wife running the farm with the assistance of her farm manager Aldoph Willem Botha.
Unfortunately, Botha was later struck and killed by a farm worker, who is believed to have stolen a substantial amount of money from him and skipped the country to neighbouring South Africa, forcing Ann to lease the farm to Matabeleland Beef.
Dave Doig, a South African national, also benefitted from the programme and was leasing the farm to Josh Munyonga, an employee at Triangle Limited.
Mike Horsley, who is married to a German national, also received eviction letters, but they are said to be covered by the Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (Bippa) so the eviction has been put on hold.
Agreements under Bippa require the government to pay fair compensation in the currency of the farm owner’s choice for both land and improvements.
Countries that signed the agreement with Zimbabwe include Denmark, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Malaysia, Switzerland, and South Africa.
However, in 2014 in a similar case to that of Doig and Horsley; Lovemore Makunun’unu approached the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) contesting a High Court judgment ordering his eviction from Frogmore Farm in Mvurwi by a German national, despite having an offer letter under the land reform programme, and Chief Justice Luke Malaba, sitting with Justice Paddington Garwe and Justice Antonio Guvava confirmed the acquisition without any compensation.
According to Warth, who worked for Triangle as an artisan specialising in refrigeration for 17 years, the scheme was meant for Triangle employees who worked for the company for more than 10 years and were below the age of 50.
“We were made to pay an initial down payment of $8 000 and the rest was supposed to be paid in 15 years. We paid a total of $350 000 for the farms which have between 40 and 50 hectares. The programme, which was officially launched by the former President Robert Mugabe was carried out in two phases and the first had only nine farmers. The second one had eight other farmers, and out of the seventeen resettled farmers, only four were white,” Warth said.
“What is mind-boggling is that others are being protected by BIPPA, but I was born at Masvingo General Hospital in 1957 and I have a Zimbabwean citizenship. I feel I should enjoy the benefits of the country like any other Zimbabwean, but I am treated as an outcast with no protection. I mean I am being persecuted like the Jews during the Second World War. “
Warth added: “We resettled like any other Zimbabwean and Robert Mugabe the former President officiated at the ceremony, but now I am told to move out of the farm. Where do I go now? This is where I call my home and I invested everything in it. So recently I bought a transformer in South Africa for $10 000 before I installed a centre pivot at a cost of $140 000.”
Warth is going to lose all his farming equipment, vehicles, a three-bed-roomed house including the newly acquired centre pivot and a one hectare banana plantation, while Bradfield is also set to lose his farming equipment and an 11-roomed house. NewsDay
We thought evictions were put on hold and farmers who under BIPA are protected from evictions without any compensation.
Inconsistent policies ? It must be a thing of the past.
online
