Villagers in Manhize are making headlines following a bold move to blockade a mining company’s truck convoy ferrying iron ores for raising copious amounts of dust which is negatively affecting the locals.
The recent moves by the community which picketed against the corporate excesses, are indicative of shifting sands in the mining industry. It shows that communities in resource rich areas are no longer folding hands but are taking on companies direct for environmental violations.
Villagers blocked Dinson Iron & Steel Company trucks in protest of degrading treatment including the arbitrary acquisition of their farmland without compensation. The villagers also complained of biting hunger and dust pollution.
In affront to the fallacy of mega investments communities in Chivhu and Mvuma, particularly those relocated to pave the way for the establishment of Disco’s US$1.5 billion steel plant, are wallowing in poverty.
They say their lives have deteriorated despite the project being hyped up as a game changer in Zimbabwe’s economy, raising fears of another resource curse, in the murky but lucrative extractive sector.
Villagers from the Mushenjere area of Manhize, settled at Inhoek Farm in Mvuma, face displacement from ancestral lands they have occupied for more than 40 years, as concerns continue to be raised over weaknesses in a flawed land tenure system that has seen mass evictions.
Disco, a local subsidiary of Chinese firm Tsingshan, has been touted as Africa’s largest integrated steel plant, but displacements have plunged locals into abject poverty, amid serious food insecurity.
The Disco project has been given prominence by the government and has been granted national status, but has however failed to fulfil its commitments to build roads, houses, and other infrastructure.
Since 2021, more than 100 families from Manhize’s Mushenjere Village have lost their land to Disco’s operations, with the villagers, once self-sufficient, now unable to produce enough food The Weekly has established.
As the WEEKLY recently reported the current land tenure system is flawed as it exposes communities to arbitrary evictions without proper compensation as there is no compensation model for relocated communities.
These vagaries of internal displacement are drawbacks on community rights to grant social licences to corporate investment. Because conditions of living on the land outlined in their permits resting solely at the discretion of the minister of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement, community rights are limited.
“Thus, the minister ‘may for any public purpose reverse this permit at any time and under such conditions as he thinks fit on payment of the holder of such compensation the minister may decide”.
In an interview with The Weekly, a local villager who requested anonymity said the local demands were around the failure to honour obligations made by the Chinese firm, which gave in to the demands of the community.
“Locals were demanding the mine to pour water on the busy road so that dust won’t affect the local inhabitants and also honour its obligations which were promised to the displaced people.
“The protest was about dust produced by Dinson trucks ferrying stones from the Tradou crusher plant. Operations temporarily came to a halt when parents blocked the road and indeed the Chinese gave in to the demands of the protesters,” said the villager.
Civic organisations have been on a putsch to have the government enforce strict compliance measures against foreign investments with the Chinese companies particularly complicit in violations of environmental and labour laws.
The Centre for Natural Resource Governance has over the year been strengthening and empowering the Manhize mining-affected community to effectively hold duty bearers, state actors and the executive to account on the serious social, and human rights and environmental crisis in the area.
The goal was to capacitate the community on issues that have to do with environmental laws, Human rights, and Free and Prior Informed Consent. The official narrative on Manhize is more on the expected economic benefits of the plant whilst silent on the externalized costs to be paid by the community.