Immediate Action Required: Farmer and family currently under seige in Zimbabwe; farm workers are being violently assaulted

via this is zimbabwe

This is taking place right now. Please can you all call the press in your area and pass the information onto them. We believe that the family are in real danger. Include the message to the press to contact SWRadio Africa for more information. Their website has contact details.

Wayne Munroe, a farmer in Nymandlovhu (just outside Bulawayo in Matabeleland North, Zimbabwe), has been under siege since early this morning. His property has been encircled by in excess of 100 “war veterans”.

He phoned the police in Nymandlovhu to inform them of the problem and was on the phone to them when 4 “war veterans” entered his office. He immediately told the member in charge that they were there and that a 303 (gun) was being pointed at his chest. He was forced to hang up.

A tussle ensued: Munroe was injured on the hand with the head of an axe blade and he sprayed the attackers with pepper spray enabling him to escape.

He was fired at 4 times, but they missed, and Munroe managed to get to the farm house where his mother and grandmother live.

The war veterans moved into the compound outside the perimeter fence and are busy right now beating the workers.

Munroe’s wife and his two children, aged 4 and 5, are holed up in their own house some 100m away.

One of the workers managed to escape the beating at the compound (which is outside the perimeter fence of both farm houses) and managed to get to Munroe.

He told Munroe that after they finished beating the workers, they were coming for the farmhouses.

Mrs Munroe (Ursula) managed to phone out that she was going to attempt getting to her husband, but has failed because more armed “war veterans” have moved in.

She is currently there now.

Senator David Coltart has repeatedly called Chief Inspector Munyira at Nymandlovhu to go and assist the Munroes.

Coltart was told by the police they would send a detail out but at 3.10pm one - ONE - police officer arrived at the gate of the farm and then left.

To add to the sinister nature of the situation, this morning the regular member in charge and various other officers were replaced at Nymandlovhu police station. This points to the fact that the police were not trusted to carry out this brutal assault.

Yesterday Munroe was warned that there had been a meeting at stops camp in Bulawayo where the decision to invade had been made.

==== For more information please contact =======

SWRadio Africa are attempting to contact the Munroes. To prevent the Munroe telephone line from being blocked up with calls at a time of crisis we are asking the press to please contact SWRadio Africa directly for information. They will be functioning as an intermediary for press enquiries.

Update:

We received information that Obert Mpofu arrived at the Munroe farm this evening with a government bus !. This happened after this story was posted up. Apparently he was yelling and shouting but no one is quite sure who he was shouting and screaming at. At this stage we aren’t sure if he was shouting about the Munroes or if, as we hope, he’d been receiving so many phone calls that he realised it would be good idea to do his MP duty and arrive at the farm and sort out the volatile situation. We are hoping the bus was there to remove all the “war veterans”.

We are very much hoping that perhaps he realised this was very public now, and that he wouldn’t be able to dodoge accountability on this crime if it got out of hand.

May we suggest, in case he forgets what a good MP should do, that you all call him and remind him of his duties and make him aware that we are all watching and we know what’s going on. Please be polite. See the comments for extra contact numbers that Miko might post there. The contact we have for Obert Mpofu is a cell number: + 263 - (0)11 - 865601.

Update: 11.52 am - 1 May

The Munroes are still under siege. We believe that most of the workers have managed to leave - some made it to a farm 4 km away and have already left there. They are too afraid to stay. We are glad to report that none of the workers appear to be seriously injured.

There is a meeting taking place with the “war veterans” near to the Munroes, but no one knows what they saying. We have heard that they are threatening to burn the Munroes out.

Obert Mpofu stayed at the farm for about 20mins ranting. We still don’t know who was taken away in the bus.