Chiefs loose case in rural land dispute in Zimbabwe

Recently two chiefs took a local company that had been granted a land lease by the Masvingo Rural District council to court. Both chiefs were demanding compensation for violation of 'their' land by the company.

The problem is that the Chiefs do not understand the current land tenure system, otherwise they would never have wasted their time going to court. The land is not theirs. It belongs to the state. It is only the state in the form of Masvingo Rural District council, which could have taken the company to court.

They also do not follow history because if they had followed, and understood, the travails of Rekai Tangwena and his people, they would have understood that they are powerless. Even more recently if they could have followed the Chiadzwa happenings.

The bottom line, and rule of thump, is if YOU do not have a piece of paper called a deed of grant (title deeds) for the land you care calling your own, then the land belongs to the state, or to someone else granted tenure by the state.

The state is at liberty to do what it wants with the land including kicking the natives off, which is what happened to the Tangwena people and Chiadzwa people.

You do not have the power to challenge the state because in the eyes of the courts, if you don't have a deed of grant to produce before the court, you haven't proved the land is yours. You are absolutely no different from me coming from Chivhu to claim that Sviba hills is my land.

The court might listen to the circumstantial evidence of witnesses to try and make a decision but in this case the authority, the Rural District Council, had actually given Econet a lease. The RDC is the arm of the state (owner of the land) administering the land at district level, not chiefs.

The chiefs should remember that the land they live in is called Maruzevha a name which arises from Native Reserves. Under Southern Rhodesia native reserves were the Queen's Land, the personal property of Elizabeth Mountbatten nee Windsor (otherwise known as Queen Elizabeth II). Under Ian Smith's UDI and Muzorewa's Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, they became Tribal Trust Lands held in trust by the government. In Zimbabwe they became Communal Lands still held in trust by the government.

The natives (meaning the chiefs and their people) are allowed to stay on that land UPON THE GRACE of the owner. In the early days the phrase 'upon the grace of the Queen' was frequently used.

Kuti ndinyatsopedzeredza nemuchivanhu, Madzishe nevanhu venyu kugara kwamakaita haasi mano enyu asi kuti kunzwirwa tsitsi (upon the grace) nevaridzi vevhu iroro, Hurumende. Panguva yehutapwa ranga riri ivhu raQueen.

Note that this is in contrast to farmers all of whom had deeds of grant. Because of that, the farmers have the power to take the State to court. Chiefs don't.

Farmers have gone as far as to regional tribunals and other international law bodies because in terms of the Roman-Dutch law system, their deeds of grant are recognized as proof of ownership of the land.

Chiefs cannot do that, as these two chiefs have just discovered. They can not even go beyond the local magistrate.

The fact that the chiefs and their people are powerless to do anything against the state is not an accident. That is exactly how the colonial system was designed - taking away all rights from the natives while giving the settlers as much rights as they needed to deal quickly with any natives who chose to be troublesome.

What this means is that if anyone goes to the state and gets a lease from the RDC for say a chief's fields and homestead, the chief or anyone else is powerless to stop the RDC from granting the lease. The people of Tangwena had their homes bulldozed because the then Rhodesian state had decided to grant someone else the land.

That is the law as it stands. When our politicians agree to uphold 'the rule of law' they are effectively agreeing to maintain a system that doesn't recognise the land where 90% of the population have homes as the occupants' property.

That the politicians have failed to reform the system - over three decades - is part of the ignorance that I am always complaining about. Most of the politicians do not know the finer details of the system. They never even stop for a minute to think about it.

Some are even trying to abuse it like the colonialists did. There have been persistent rumours that certain powerful people in Buhera have been trying to move villagers to enlarge their fields.