Hundreds of Zanu PF youths yesterday defied a High Court order and beseiged the Anglican Church land in Chitungwiza where they maintained the disputed property should be parcelled out to them.
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The High Court last week granted the Anglican Church an order to remove the youths from their land. Recently, nearly 1,000 youths disrupted a church service at St Mary’s Parish and held hostage the congregants..
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spokesperson of the Anglican Bishop in the Diocese of Harare, Precious Shumba, called on Zanu PF leaders to call their youths to order.
Recently, the church appealed to Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Local Government minister Ignatius Chombo to intervene.
“We condemn the lawlessness that is being promoted by these desperate people hiding behind Zanu PF,” Shumba said. “The Anglican Church has a right to its property and we hope the authorities will respect the order granted. Lawlessness destroys the nation’s hope of economic and social recovery. The leadership of Zanu PF is not above the laws of this country and they must be held accountable. We expect the police to decisively deal with this matter and remove all illegal occupants from our land.”
This is so sad. The property at St Mary’s belongs to the Anglican diocese which has a plan for community use. But the trouble in Zimbabwe is that with the breakdown of the rule of law, it becomes a battle for survival, with people grabbing what they can. The example is set by the top brass of the army and the ruling political party, seizing farms and passing laws requiring companies to give them a portion of the shareholding/equity.
Chitungwiza is a place where raw sewage runs down the middle of the street. With the collapse of the piped water system, people have been sinking boreholes for water, but the danger is that these will be contaminated by sewage and cholera break out again.
Chitungwiza is a place of tragedy. The RC church there, St Theresa’s, had as its parish priest one of the few white Zimbabwean priests, Fr David Gibbs. He was knocked off his scooter in a hit and run accident and killed, one of many such mysterious road accidents in Zimbabwe.