Prime Minister’s ‘niece’ speaks about Chegutu farm invasion
By Violet Gonda
10 June 2009

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’.

The Cremer family said that in January this year Dr Chihombori’s sister sent a group of unemployed youths to take the farm, but the occupation only lasted three days, after which the youths left complaining of not being paid enough. In April Dr Chihombori applied to the courts for an application to evict the Cremer family, producing an offer letter dated December 2008 as evidence. But Dr Chihombori revealed to us that she is withdrawing the matter from the magistrate’s case - for the time being. She said this was because of the way the Cremers abused her sister and a Chegutu lands officer when they went to represent her case at the farm. She said: “At one point Mr Cremer let his dog at them and started yelling at my sister calling her a cold stupid kaffir and that he was not going to listen to any instructions from a kaffir.”

The medical doctor insists it was because of this ‘abuse’ and not pressure from the Prime Minister to leave the farm alone, that she was taking a step back.

The website Newzimbabwe reported on Tuesday that Tsvangirai was going to instruct Chihombori to “walk away from that farm.”

Meanwhile an MDC source had told us on Tuesday that Mr. Tsvangirai and the medical doctor were not related, but the Prime Minister’ spokesperson James Maridadi insisted on Wednesday that the two are indeed related. “Dr. Chihombori is the Prime Minister’s niece and that is not in dispute. She is 52 years old and an uncle cannot be held responsible for the commissions or omissions on the part of a 52 year old niece.” Maridadi added.

On Tuesday Justice for Agriculture, a group that campaigns on behalf of commercial farmers in Zimbabwe, said the affected farmer had approached the American embassy to enquire about a US citizen who was attempting to invade the farm, and the Prime Minister was then reportedly approached when it had been revealed it was his niece.

But Maridadi said the Prime Minister had not engaged anyone in a discussion pertaining to the issue of the farm. He stated: “Now that there is a lot of interest coming out in the press, I think there may be need for the Prime Minister to maybe look at the case closer and then determine what kind of action to take from there. But as of now the Prime Minister is on a very busy schedule of his tour of the US, Europe and Scandinavia, and he doesn’t have a lot of time to engage on the issue of the Cremer Farm, and he doesn’t have the facts.”