MDC Youth Assembly Statement on Imminent Kambuzuma Evictions_

The MDC Youth Assembly notes with concern and disgust at Emmerson Mnangagwa cartel front man, Billy Rautenbach’s overtures to evict more than 1000 families from the land in Kambuzuma to pave way for a private capitalistic project.

Rautenbach who also owns vast tracks of idle land in Mwenezi and Chisumbanje areas is a close ally of Mr Mnangagwa through years of shoddy and corrupt mining scams traceable to Zimbabwe’s involvement in DRC civil war.

The Rautenbach-Joshua Nkomo Housing Cooperative wrangle does not only expose the double faced nature of Mr Mnangagwa, but explicitly lays bare his One Step Forward, Two Steps Back approach to politics.

In a typical Thomas Miekles and Looting Committee move, the ruthless land baron and ZANU PF benefactor, Rautenbach is flexing his imperialistic tentacles and this time the target is a defenseless and poverty stricken indigenous community whose existence and livelihoods is hinged on small stands they own as a cooperative.

The biggest iron of it is that the Kambuzuma community is facing eviction at a time when those in charge of government are yet to fulfill their electoral promise to build houses for homeless citizens.

It is regrettable that the same regime that parrot about “protecting gains of independence” is taking us back to the colonial era where a few white minority would own vast tracks of land as individuals at the expense of the majority black people.

In the same way that Rautenbach is vouching for eviction of those in Joshua Nkomo Kambuzuma cooperative, Ian Smith in the 1970s once led an onslaught to evict the Tangwena people from their land in Gaeresi area.

Not only does the imminent Kambuzuma evictions raises questions about Mnangagwa’s so called ‘new dispensation’, but brings with it a flood of sad memories about his predecessor’s Operation Murambatsvina that left thousands homeless.

Just like during Robert Mugabe era when his wife, Grace evicted and displaced thousands at Manzou farm, Mnangagwa’s cartel front man is itching to displace thousands in Kambuzuma.

Certainly the ‘New Dispensation’ is reading from the past with distinction!

Simply put in Fannonian terms, Mnangagwa is just but another black skin in white mask!

As an Assembly of young social democrats whose conviction is drawn from the principle of solidarity, we are not going to fold hands but stand with the down trodden.

Stephen Sarkozy Chuma
MDC Youth Assembly National Spokesperson