The Sunday News
Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu
THE Republic of Zimbabwe celebrates its 40th year of independence on April 18, 2020, a period characterised by successes in some fields and failures in others.
Before attaining independence, the country had been a British colony for 89 years. Three of these years 1890 to 1893, a part of Zimbabwe called Mashonaland then comprising 32 independent chiefdoms, was occupied and ruled by a business organisation called the British South Africa Company (BSAC) formed and headed by Cecil John Rhodes; from November 1893 to 1923, some 30 years, the whole country was under the BSAC, and from November 1894 it was known as Southern Rhodesia, a name adopted after the invasion and defeat of the independent state of the Matabeleland Kingdom by the BSAC in November 1893.
From 1923 it was ruled by what the British administration referred to as “Responsible Government”, its parliament comprising 30 white people until December 6, 1961 when a constitution crafted and agreed by the British Government and a Southern Rhodesian colonial delegation gave the country black majority 15 parliamentary seats, and increased those for the white settlers to 50.
That constitution was rejected by an African nationalist delegation headed by the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo, the other members being advocate Herbert Chitepo, Rev Ndabaningi Sithole, Tarcisius George Silundika and advocate Enock Dumbutshena. The African people organised a referendum to show the world, especially Britain, that the new constitution was not acceptable.
In spite of that, the British House of Commons legalised that document, and the Southern Rhodesian regime held general elections in 1962 on its basis, and 14 black stooges were voted into the country’s House of Assembly, and a white lawyer won as an independent in an African Salisbury constituency, bringing the number to the constitutional total of 15 repressing the black majority.
These 15 seats were on what was called the “B” Roll, as opposed to an “A” Roll with 15 seats meant for the white minority settlers. A relatively new racist political party, the Rhodesia Front (RF), won 35 seats, and an older one led by Sir Edgar Whitehead got 29, a number that included the 14 “B” Roll seats.
The “A” Roll qualifications were:
– An income of £1 972 during each of the preceding two years before the claim to be a voter was made, or an ownership of an immovable property valued at £1,50 or
– An income of £528 during each of two years preceding the date of the claim, or ownership of an immovable property valued at £1 100 and completion of a primary education course of a prescribed standard or
– An income of £330 during each of the two years preceding the claim to be a voter; or an ownership of an immovable property valued at £500, and four years secondary education of a prescribed standard, or
– An appointment to the office of chief or headman.
The vast majority of the black people of Southern were earning far less than the above figures, let alone owning property of the stipulated values. The only black people who qualified under those requirements were chiefs and headmen.
The “B” Roll qualifications were:
– An income of £264 per year during the six months preceding the date of claiming to be a voter; or ownership of immovable property valued at £495, or
– (i) An income of £132 per year or ownership of immovable property valued at £275; and
– two years’ secondary education, or
– One should be above 30 years old earning
– An income of £132 per year during the preceding six months of claiming to be a voter, or ownership of immovable property valued at £275; and
– One should have completed a course of primary education of a prescribed standard or
One should be above 30 years of age with an income of £198 per year during the six months before the date of claiming to be a voter; or one should be an owner of an immovable property valued at £385; or be
– A kraal head with a following of at least 20 heads of families, or be
– A minister of religion
The reader is advised to remember that in those years, African workers were paid literally a negligible fraction of what was paid a white worker doing a similar job. The voters’ qualifications were thus meant to make it easy for white people to become voters, but impossible for black people to qualify. With the Rhodesian Front (RF) coming into power, the Southern Rhodesian political situation worsened for the black people, and an armed revolution became inevitable. The RF, for its part, made no bones about the fact that it had no time for the demanded rights of the country’s majority, particularly on the land question.
Its founders and most senior leaders were farmers, and they said they were determined to go down fighting. In Southern Rhodesia, land categories and their respective areas were: European Area — 49, 149, 174 acres,
Native Reserves — 21, 600, 000 acres, Native Purchase Area — 7, 464, 566 acres, Undetermined land — 88, 540 acres.
The reader will notice that the white settler regime granted the white people who were only about 200 000 at that time much more land than the almost four million black people who were dumped by force of arms on the so-called Native Reserves. There were 88 so-called native reserves throughout the country. The classification of land was based on the Land Apportionment Act of 1930, and it was amended 10 times between 1941 and 1964. In 1969, its name was changed to the Land Tenure Act as a public relations measure to hoodwink the world since it was in fact the corner stone of the Southern Rhodesia type of apartheid.
When it was passed in 1930, it had the blessings of the British Government which could have in fact vetoed it as that was provided in the 1923 Letters’ Patent that granted the white settler minority the responsible government stated above.
Up to early 1964, the RF national president was a Marondera tobacco farmer, Winston Joseph Field. He began negotiating with Britain for Rhodesia’s independence but was soon replaced by Ian Douglas Smith because the party’s top hierarchy said he was not dynamic enough.
No sooner did Smith become the Prime Minister in 1964 than the regime rounded up the country’s African political leadership and dumped them at the remote, hot Gonakudzingwa in the Gonarezhou wildlife wilderness, and at the Chikombero, away in the Kwekwe rural area. Gonakudzingwa was for Zapu and Chikombero (Sikombela) for Zanu supporters and leaders; thus Joshua Nkomo and his supporters were sent to Gonakudzingwa, and the Rev Ndabaningi Sithole and his immediate lieutenants such as Leopold Takawira, former President Robert Gabriel Mugabe, Edson Zvobgo, Michael Mawema, Edgar Tekere and other Zanu freedom — fighters were at Chikombero. The leaders of both Zanu and Zapu wanted one person, one vote and nothing less, and having got that power, they would form a government whose priority concern would be to return the land to the indigenous people.
On whether or not the white settler land-owners would be compensated, both parties agreed that if they were to be, that was the British government’s responsibility and certainly not that of the people or Government of Zimbabwe.
This matter needs to be clarified so that the western (European) nations are clear about how the people of Zimbabwe feel about it. In 1890, Cecil John Rhodes organised in South Africa what he called “The Pioneer Column”, comprising several hundreds of armed men whom his business company, the British South Africa Company (BSAC) paid seven shillings and sixpence per day to come to Zimbabwe to farm, mine and settle.
The company gave them the land and mining claims Rhodes had promised them. Many of those white adventurists did not remain long in the country, but sold the land and mining claims and left. They had been given title deeds by the BSAC, a business organisation that had not paid a penny (cent) for that land.
If we are charitable to admit that Rhodes had been given a concession by King Lobengula to look for gold and farm wherever in what Lobengula wrongly or rightly considered to be his kingdom, nowhere did the King say Rhodes and his company would own Land as their personal private property. That was because it was and is still most unAfrican for an individual to own land, a communal inheritance of the entire nation as Bantu tradition holds it. Land was always held in trust for the people by chiefs.
No chief had ever sold a piece of his or her land to anyone. Whites were driven by inhuman greed, the major criminal element of capitalism, to grab land from defenceless Africans, and later claim ownership over it. That was while they were still in domineering political positions. In South Africa, they now talk of “willing buyer, willing seller”.
They wish to sell African land to Africans some of whom are descendants of people who were dispossessed and displaced by some of the ancestors of those white people who now call themselves “willing sellers.” The very same experience our ancestors had in our country, Zimbabwe, is precisely the same the black people of South Africa had at the brutal hands of those white rural farmers.
King Ngqika, King Gcaleka, King Hintsa experienced at the hands of those trekkers what numerous others elsewhere in Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Americas and, of course, Zimbabwe went through at the hands of colonialist in those extremely sad days.
What we can and should negotiate to pay for are houses and other improvements on farms occupied by white settler descendants, and not to buy our own land. Surely, and, again, surely, the Africa naturally belongs to Africans, and that fact is not only deniable but non-negotiable.
Africa ndeyedu! IAfrica ngeyethu! Africa kearoona!
– Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu is a retired, Bulawayo-based journalist. He can be contacted on cell 0734328136 or through email: [email protected]
