Bona Mugabe grabs farm

By Fungi Kwaramba

HARARE – President Robert Mugabe’s daughter Bona has reportedly kicked out a white farmer from his farm.

While details remained sketchy yesterday, the white farmer, only identified as Nathan, vacated his Divonia Farm along the Harare-Nyamapanda highway.

When the Daily News crew visited the farm just outside Harare, the terrified farmer was preparing to leave. He said he got the farm in 2008, following years of neglect.

“There is no problem at this farm, we are just leaving,” Nathan told the Daily News.

Earlier on, Nathan had indicated to this paper that he was tired after he had spent the day packing his farm equipment. He said he would shed more light on the farm invasion today.

“I cannot talk right now I want to go to Harare and I am tired,” he said. Pressed to comment whether Bona was involved in the land invasion, he said, “this is a very sensitive matter and I would rather not comment.”

Nathan, who claimed to be in partnership with another farmer only identified as Hunter, told independent radio station Voice of America (VOA) that he was being kicked out to pave way for the newly-married first daughter.

Citing an army colonel, Nathan said he was given a short time to vacate the farm.

“I have been in contact with Zanu PF and they have promised no more farm invasions,” he said.

“Now there are people here and they have taken the farm. On Friday I had a message from Colonel Nkatazo to say that Bona, Mugabe’s daughter wants the farm. We are busy taking our trailers and tractors off the land.”

Nathan said after he had been warned to vacate the land, he spoke to a senior Zanu PF official, whose name he was reluctant to divulge, who reportedly told him that the “first family does not behave that way.”

But of late, Mugabe has been fanning fresh farm invasions, insisting that the few remaining white farmers should leave and go back to Europe, the land of their fore-bearers.

According to the Commercial Farmers Union, there are between 100 and 150 white farmers left in Zimbabwe, from 4 500 at independence in 1980.

Nathan told VOA that his removal from the farm was not an invasion. Asked if journalists could visit the farm, he claimed everything was peaceful.

“I wouldn’t want you to come here, things are very peaceful,” he said. “Just mention what is happening. It is not an invasion. We just have been told to get off the farm. There are people who are here who purport to be the police but won’t give us their names or IDs.”

Mugabe’s wife Grace recently revealed that she personally led the  invasion of her Iron Mask farm in Mazowe, claiming it was a way of leading by example.

Workers at Nathan’s farm told the Daily News that police and some men in plain clothes had been visiting the farm regularly.

“We are moving, we have been told that Bona is taking over the land, but those are just rumours,” said a farm labourer.

Efforts to get a comment from the first family were futile, as they are in New York attending the UN summit. Daily News