About 600 families who settled uninvited on farms owned by South African sugar producer Tongaat Hulett in southeastern Zimbabwe will be evicted, Rural Resettlement Minister Douglas Mombeshora said.
“We don’t allow any invaders on any piece of land, so any invader must be pulled out immediately,” Mombeshora said in a telephone interview today from the capital, Harare. the families have been given letters to occupy “virgin land” that isn’t owned by the agricultural company.
The families took over land this month at Hippo Valley Estates Ltd. and Triangle Estates in Chiredzi district, sites belonging to Durban-based Tongaat Hulett, South Africa’s second- biggest sugar producer.
“The matter is being dealt with appropriately by the authorities and operations are continuing as normal,” Adelaide Chikunguru-Musvovi, a Tongaat Hulett spokeswoman, said in an e- mailed statement from Chiredzi.
Supporters of Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party began occupying mainly white-owned farms in 2000, displacing about 300 000 agricultural employees and 3 000 white farmers. The Commercial Farmers Union, which represents most white farmers, said yesterday that the industry continues to be disrupted…
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