The grand-lawsuit by close to 200 Mazoe families against First Lady Grace Mugabe who wants to build a game reserve and has left the villagers homeless, is set to pour humiliation on President Robert Mugabe.
The lawyer for the families, Gift Mtisi of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), told ZimEye.com there is High Ourt order barring the removals meaaning the police who carried out the evictions acted in contempt of court. “We have a court order so we are taking this forward against the government ministers involved,” he said of the illegal eviction which come shortly in the heels of another plan to kick out 600 more at Celtic Farm in the Mazowe area to pave way for another of Grace’s expansive ambitions.
Hundreds of villagers have since been left with no roof over their head in the torrential rains which pounded the Mazoe causing massive flooding.
The evictions were carried out by the police and a judge is now set to rule if the villagers’ case should be heard urgently. Mtisi in another interview told Sapa that lawyers had instituted contempt of court proceedings against police and two ministers in President Robert Mugabe’s government over the demolitions, on Manzou Estate in Mazowe district.
“We are now waiting for a judge to make a decision on whether the matter is urgent or not so that it can be heard anytime [from now],” Mtisi said.
The families were granted a court order last year preventing the authorities from evicting them from their homes near Mazowe – where Grace Mugabe already owns an orphanage, a school and a farm – until they had been allocated alternative land.
Mtisi said: “In respect of the court order, which we already had, we instituted contempt of court proceedings. We are defending the order which was granted last year.”
The two ministers cited are the minister of land and the minister of home affairs.
Human rights groups and opposition parties have slammed the demolition of the houses belonging to the villagers, some of who have been living at Manzou Estate for the last 14 years.
Separate reports on Friday said that another 600 families from the nearby Celtic Farm had also been told to vacate their plots to make way for Grace Mugabe.
“According to Grace Mugabe, might is right and the rights of the poor do not matter at all as long as the rich and powerful get their way,” Movement for Democratic Change spokesman Obert Gutu said.
The Heal Zimbabwe Trust, a prominent local rights group, said in a statement issued on Friday: “Some of the victims are sleeping in the open and most of them have young babies and children.”
SAPA