Professor Lovemore Madhuku has denounced security guards of Billy Rautenbach’s Greenfuel for destroying houses and unharvested crops in Chipinge describing them as hooligans.
Madhuku is representing the villagers who are being evicted from Chinyamukwakwa Village in Chipinge south constituency by Rautenbach’s energy company.
He speaks amid reports that the security guards on Thursday ploughed down crops and destroyed some houses as the land dispute rages on.
Madhuku accused Greenfuel of dishonouring an agreement to allow villagers to finish their harvests by August before such evictions could take place.
Madhuku said Greenfuel’s behaviour suggested that Rautenbach had the support of political elites. He promised to take legal action against the company. He said:
_Where would private citizen derive private force because security guards, that is private force, it not like you are sending the Police or the Army. It would be like you have just sent your own hooligans to do that._
_Those are their own hooligans, they have no power under the law to do what they are doing._
_We had agreed with Greenfuel that any evictions of villagers must take place after August after villagers have finished harvesting._
_It is very worrying and I think the company is working with some politicians because ordinarily no citizen could do that._
Greenfuel which grows sugarcane mainly for the production of fuel wants to expand its fields while the villagers insist that the land belongs to their ancestors.