Prime Minister’s ‘niece’ involved in attempt to invade Chegutu farm

Dr. Arikana Chihombori, the woman related to Morgan Tsvangirai and accused of attempting to invade a Chegutu farm, has spoken for the first time. The US medical doctor told SW Radio Africa on Wednesday that she was indeed related to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and also confirmed that she was given an offer letter to ‘take over’ part of the Cremer farm in Chegutu. She said she is Zimbabwean and has a right to land and was given an offer letter because she had proven she had the resources to take up farming. When asked if it was right to just go in and steal people’s property, Chihombori said the land redistribution programme is there to ‘correct historical injustices’. The Cremer family said that in January this year Dr Chihombori’s sister sent a group of unemployed youths to take the farm, but the occupation only lasted three days, after which the youths left complaining of not being paid enough. In April Dr Chihombori applied to the courts for an application to evict the Cremer family, producing an offer letter dated December 2008 as evidence.But Dr Chihombori revealed to us that she is withdrawing the matter from the magistrate’s case - for the time being. She said this was because of the way the Cremers abused her sister and a Chegutu lands officer when they went to represent her case at the farm. She said: “At one point Mr Cremer let his dog at them and started yelling at my sister calling her a cold stupid kaffir and that he was not going to listen to any instructions from a kaffir.” The medical doctor insists it was because of this ‘abuse’ and not pressure from the Prime Minister to leave the farm alone, that she was taking a step back. The website Newzimbabwe reported on Tuesday that Tsvangirai was going to instruct Chihombori to “walk away from that farm.”