Chivanhu settlement is situated in Masvingo Rural District within Masvingo Province in southern Zimbabwe. The province falls under agro-ecological regions 4 and 5, which are characterised by intermittent rains of less than 500 mm per year. The area of Masvingo Rural District comprises small-scale commercial farms, large-scale commercial farms, resettlement areas, communal areas and informal settlements. In addition, there is a growth point (called Nemanwa), the Great Zimbabwe monuments, Lake Mutirikwi (the largest inland lake in Zimbabwe) and the Zimbabwe National Park. Chivanhu Settlement is situated in (but on the outskirts of) Ward 12 of Masvingo Rural District. As shown in Figure 2, Chivanhu is located at the boundary between Charumbira communal area and former commercial farm land (now fast track resettlement land). It is an area that had been used as unofficial grazing land by the village members of nearby communal lands, since independence
Ward 12 falls under Headman Nemanwa, who is under Chief Charumbira. Chivanhu has seven village heads, whose names are Chivanhu, Chirengarenga, Muzoroza, Sani, Muzvimwe, Masvaya and Masotcha. The village heads are under the jurisdiction of Headman Nemanwa, residing in Chief Charumbira’s area. All of them, with the exception of Chivanhu who resides in the settlement, are residing in Charumbira’s communal area a distance away from the settlement, where their village boundaries existed before they settled people in Chivanhu.
Some of the village heads stay as far as eight kilometres from the settlement, but they claim
93 jurisdiction over settlement dwellers because they facilitated the settlement of some of the inhabitants of Chivanhu Settlement. As a result of this, most settlement residents are not officially registered10 by their traditional leaders in the official village head register which is accountable to the local government authority and used for development assistance planning and targeting.
The settlement pattern in Chivanhu does not entail distinct villages with clearly-demarcated boundaries between villages (over which there is a head). There is significant boundary confusion or no real boundaries at all, as households are haphazardly settled in the community and seven village heads claim to have control over people in the settlement. Even the settlers are not always clear who falls under whose jurisdiction. The process of settling in the area was not legal according to interviews conducted during the field visits, although village heads were involved. The area is not designated as communal area and, secondly, in terms of government land use planning it is officially designated as intensive conservation area, where there should be limited land use and human settlement. The number of households in Chivanhu settlement fluctuated between 238 and 249 over the duration of the research period.
The household sizes in the settlement were mainly between 6 to 10 people, but some households had more than 15 people.
Chivanhu Settlement does not have a long history. In the early independence years, people started to spontaneously settle on land that was previously owned by Morgenster Mission and a deserted commercial farm owned by a colonial farmer known as Barney. Morgenster Mission, a local Reformed Church mission, previously owned the area as a cattle farm until 1978 at the height of the liberation war when they handed over the area to Chief Mugabe11. The original Morgenster Mission farm extended up to Lake Mutirikwi to what is now the Zimbabwe National Park. Since independence in 1980, people moved into the area through collusions and clandestine land sales with various traditional leaders (including the headmen mentioned) in the area. ZANU-PF politicians like the late Edison Zvobgo encouraged the
10 Official village head registers are used for beneficiary registration for accessing services like BEAM, food assistance, agricultural inputs and other NGO-facilitated services; however, this does not hinder them from voting in elections.
11 Interviews with traditional leaders revealed that, during the war, Mugabe‘s origins were not clearly disclosed and the missionaries thought by handing over the disputed land to Chief Mugabe they might contribute to the end of the liberation struggle. However land given to Chief Mugabe was also partially owned or claimed by Headman Nemanwa and Chief Charumbira.
94 early movements into the area. Early settlements were closer to Lake Mutirikwi into what is now demarcated as Zimbabwe National Park (see Figure 2).
Figure 2: Map extract showing the early 1980s and current location of settlement
In 1987, the original settlers were forcibly removed by the government and the land use was re-gazetted as land for the Zimbabwe National Park. The area was reclassified and reserved for the Zimbabwe National Park; however, there is no wildlife in the park. The fence for the Zimbabwe National Park has been removed by the Chivanhu residents and the Zimbabwe National Park area is used for grazing cattle. The displaced people comprised only a handful of households and these were relocated around Sikato area (area marked early settlement on figure 2) and some closer to Nemanwa growth point. The area where Chivanhu Settlement is now located was set aside as grazing land for the relocated people. During the late 1990s, individual village heads started to allocate land in the area that had been set aside as grazing land.
The settlement continued to expand further into other unoccupied spaces through informal sales of land on the margins of communal and former commercial farm land by the local
95 village heads without formal approval from the chief and the local authorities. The population steadily increased from the late 1990s and the early 2000s despite challenges in 1999. In November 1999, the reigning Chief Charumbira successfully got an eviction order against the settlement dwellers from the courts. The settlers claimed that he evicted them because he wanted to set up an irrigation scheme. Police officers followed the instructions on the court order and burnt the homesteads and forcibly moved everyone residing in the settlement area.
However, with the advent of the fast track land reform in the year 2000, Chief Charumbira received land from the former Agricultural Rural Development Authority (ARDA) farm which lies about five kilometres from the settlement12 and the village heads, facing pressure from residents who had given them money to settle initially, encouraged the settlers to resettle again.
The 1990s period and the concomitant economic and political challenges in the country also coincided with the disintegration of formal governance structures, and problems in the Natural Resources Board and local authorities. In this context, traditional authorities (including headmen) saw an opportunity of undermining the position of the Rural District Councils.
Concomitant with the disintegration of formal governance structures was the increased autonomy of traditional leaders through the revised Traditional Leaders Act, 1998, and amendments of 1999. Traditional leaders, in Chivanhu Settlement, took advantage of these developing processes and expanded the settlement into areas that were not previously designated for habitation, including those formerly gazetted as grazing lands. There are no clear-cut boundaries due to these factors.