The Sunday News
LAST week, media platforms were awash with the heroic timely interception of stock thieves in Irisvale, Umzingwane District in Matabeleland South Province.
The interception and apprehension of one of the three members of the stock theft gang, was carried out by the Irisvale community anti-stock theft committee led by their local councillor.
The callous thieves had slaughtered five beasts from a single farmer, Mr Miclous Dube, coincidentally my former school mate.
slaughtered beasts
I honestly empathise with Mr Dube for such a loss to brutal thieves, for I know for a fact that the five animals will fetch anything in the region of US$3 500 based on conservative estimates per animal.
This is a painful loss anytime and any place to anyone.
The consolation, however, is the fact that the thieves were intercepted before they disappeared into the dark suburbs of Bulawayo to sell their loot and one of them is in custody and will obviously help the police with investigations.
More importantly Mr Dube will have closure regarding his animals for he was going to search for months going through the bushes of Irisvale and beyond trying to locate them.
Any livestock farmer will tell you that there is nothing as painful as following a cold trail of your animals, where you do not even meet one person who claims to have seen the animals in recent days, and yet you keep going with the hope that you eventually get them.
This search can last months and even years before one gives up and writes off the animals from his mind.
The import of this week instalment, however, is to celebrate the heroic efforts of Clr Makhala and his community anti-stock theft committee in Irisvale.
This is something other communities must emulate.
The first and principal lesson to derive from the Irisvale effort is that unity of villagers is paramount in curbing stock theft.
Thieves usually do not just descend onto a community with no intelligence information about the issue they are targeting.
They will either have a local accomplice or a former resident of that community who has an in depth knowledge of the area.
While other communities like Shanyawugwe have been known to unite against livestock farmers trying to recover their stolen animals, Irisvale community teamed up to be on the right side of the law.
livestock
The second important lesson is commitment to a cause.
It is no small matter for villagers to unite and commit to laying an ambush in the dead of the night from 10pm up until around 2am, especially in this cold weather.
That level of commitment from a community is very commendable.
I will not be surprised to learn than there were people who do not even own any livestock from that team.
A community needs to commit itself to be able to deal with a raging vice like stock theft.
Thieves will naturally go to great lengths to evade detection and arrest, and this includes striking in the dead of the night when everyone is asleep.
It is my submission therefore that smallholder livestock farmers everywhere should form these community anti-stocktheft committees and help to protect their livestock.
While I admit that it may not be possible to copy and paste the intervention because the geography and context could be very different, it is not disputable that community commitment is required to curb this vice.
The geography of Irisvale has probably one road in and out and hence easier to barricade and search vehicles.
This may not be the same with most communal areas, but something can still be done of a similar nature especially in major roads going in and out of our communities.
Let’s be vigilant of vehicles coming into our communities at night or late evening because these could be carriers of our livestock dead or alive.
Also, let’s be vigilant of people hoofing animals in our rangelands.
They could be driving them to loading points away from the eyes of the community where they will be transported by vehicles never to be seen again.
If we make our communities watertight regarding movement of livestock, we do not only curb stocktheft but also help prevent spread of animal diseases.
Uyabonga umntakaMaKhumalo.
Mhlupheki Dube is a livestock specialist and farmer.
He writes in his own capacity.
Feedback [email protected]/ Cell 0772851275
