Suspected Zanu PF supporters yesterday invaded a farm
belonging to former president Robert Mugabe on the outskirts of Harare.
The rowdy invaders, including a man who was armed with a
gun arrived at Pomona Farm near the Pomona army barracks late in the afternoon.
They set up barricades at the farm entrance where they
searched cars and people who were getting in or out of the farm.
Workers at the farm said the invades, some that were
wearing President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s 2018 election campaign t-shirts, started
trooping in at around 3pm.
At around 8:30pm the invaders had started a fire at the
gate and were blocking access to the farm. The armed man searched the car used by our news crew.
“Can you open the doors, we want to see what is in the car.
One of you should come out and open the boot for us,” one of them said, before
they eventually allowed the news crew out.
Mnangagwa last week hinted at a Zanu PF rally in Kadoma
that Mugabe’s family will be forced to relinquish its farms in line with the
government’s one-man one-farm policy.
Mugabe, who died in Singapore in September, owned several
commercial farms that were seized from white Zimbabweans at the height of the
chaotic land reform programme.
The former first family is already on the verge of losing a
Mazowe farm, which is being parcelled out to small scale gold miners.
Soon after Mugabe’s death some Zanu PF officials wanted the
ruling party to seize his Blue Roof mansion and another house in Harare.
The properties are registered under Zanu PF and calls to
seize them were seen as an attempt to hit back at Mugabe’s widow Grace
(pictured) after she blocked the government from burying Zimbabwe’s founding
leader at the Heroes Acre.
Grace was part of a Zanu PF faction that temporarily pushed
Mnangagwa out of the ruling party and government in 2017 before he bounced back
with the help of the military. Standard
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