Prime Minister’s ‘niece’ speaks about Chegutu farm invasion
Dr. Arikana Chihombori, the woman related to Morgan Tsvangirai and accused of attempting to invade a Chegutu farm, has spoken for the first time.
The US medical doctor told SW Radio Africa on Wednesday that she was indeed related to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and also confirmed that she was given an offer letter to ‘take over’ part of the Cremer farm in Chegutu. She said she is Zimbabwean and has a right to land and was given an offer letter because she had proven she had the resources to take up farming. When asked if it was right to just go in and steal people’s property, Chihombori said the land redistribution programme is there to ‘correct historical injustices’… read the full article on SW Radio Africa
June 11th, 2009 14:00
This woman is obviously someone of some means it boggles the mind why she feels she is more deserving of a farm because she has the means to run one. If she has the means to run one she should do what everyone else does and buy one for herself, get title deeds and run it successfully. That I will applaud.
I and millions of Zimbabweans like me work our proverbials off to get by in life without asking for hand outs. True there are some Zimbos who truly need help but she is I am afraid not one of them. There is no mileage is transferring wealth between a rich white person to a rich black one – that is just colour and zimbos need to know that the politics of colour does not put grain in our silos or job ads in the papers.
Her attempts to justify her actions are truly shameful. Sure we have problems and sure some white Zimbos treat poor people very badly but so do some black Zimbos that is no excuse for an uncoordinated, unplanned land grab!
June 12th, 2009 21:14
I’m so furious about this and can only think it’s because of this woman’s close association with Tsvangirai which has bitterly disappointed me.
I wondered if his niece’s hopes for a slice of an asset developed over at least thirty years by someone else, had to do with his very tepid recent statements concerning farm invasions – and that is a prospect to make us all shudder.
Hopefully there will be a huge backlash against her in the US as people realise what she’s trying to do in Africa.
It really is time to stop talking about “land redistribution” and the associated racial issues, and to focus on the basic rule-of-law. Even if her claim on the Cremers’ farmhouse is legitimate in terms of some screwed-up self serving version of history and according to the ZANU-PF textbook of commercial law, she still has NO legal right to attempt to force the sitting occupants out without the assistance of the Sheriff. And it is completely horrifying to think that Tsvangirai knows about this and hasn’t prioritised it.
If James Maridadi thinks it’s OK to tell the world that Tsvangirai is too busy right now to attend to this matter, then he really isn’t paying attention himself because this kind of thing instantly extends the suspicion that already attaches to Mugabe, to Tsvangirai himself. And right now all he’s got going for him is his personal credibility. Is he willing to gamble with that? If so, Zimbabwe is really finished.