ESSEX WIFE WHO TOLD ZIMBABWEANS: WE'RE HERE TO RECLAIM OUR LAND
By Lech Mintowt-Czyz
AS white Zimbabwean farmers, Vincent and Monica Schultz had lived in fear of the day Robert Mugabe's henchmen would come to grab the beautiful £2million estate which had been in the family for generations.
What they didn't expect was that, when eviction came, they would be ordered from their land by a middle-class white woman with a broad estuary English accent.
Anne Matonga, a former Essex social worker who grew up in Kent, arrived with her husband and told the astonished Schultzes she was there to "reclaim my land".
They say that, flanked by government henchmen, she then yelled at them: "Get off our land. We are taking back what you stole from our forefathers."
Mrs Schultz, 58, who was born at the farm, said yesterday: "I thought it was a remarkable thing for her to say since she was clearly white and British."
Police officers accompanying Mrs Matonga arrested Mr Schultz for failing to heed his eviction notice.
The 57-year-old, one of more than 3,000 white Zimbabwean farmers having their land grabbed by President Mugabe, is now almost penniless. He spent the last of the couple's £11,000 savings on severance packages for their 130 farm workers.
Four generations of Mrs Schultz's family had lived on Mupandagutu Farm since the 1920s. The 1,500-acre rose farm has a thatched farmhouse and an airstrip.
Mr and Mrs Schultz, now living in a cramped flat in the capital, Harare, despair at how their lives have been turned upside-down.
"We are feeling very bitter about the whole thing," said Mr Schultz. "We are left with absolutely nothing."
The farm was given to the Matongas as a reward for their support of Mugabe's regime.
Until last year, 39-year-old Mrs Matonga and her black Zimbabwean husband Bright had lived in a £160,000 semi in Billericay, Essex.
Mrs Matonga was born Anne Pout, the daughter of a greengrocer in the Kent village of Eccles.
She went to Aylesford School, where she was head girl, and worked in the finance department of Kent County Council before moving to Essex County Council as a social worker in 1983.
She met her husband in the mid-1990s while he was a student at South East Essex College in Southend-on-Sea. As he neared the end of his media degree, he faced being ordered out of Britain by the Home Office for not meeting the requirements of a university student. However, local Tory MP Sir Teddy Taylor, successfully intervened on his behalf.
Mr Matonga, 34, has since worked as a journalist with the pro-Mugabe Zimbabwean Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) and for the BBC World Service. He has also written several articles for African papers in support of Mugabe's policies.
He returned to live in Zimbabwe last year, having been promised a job by information minister Jonathan Moyo.
On arrival he was made head of television services at ZBC. He, his wife and their four-year-old daughter Farai lived in a flat in Harare.
Mr Matonga has since been made the chief executive officer of the state-owned Zimbabwe United Passenger Company.
He was given the Schultz's farm last month by the Mugabe government. Despite having lived in Zimbabwe for only a year, Mrs Matonga readily speaks against the "white colonialists who stole our land".
Speaking from the farm, in Banket, 50 miles north of Harare, Mrs Matonga praised Mugabe for his "patience with the racist white farmers". She said those evicted by force "only have themselves to blame" and dismissed criticism of the regime as "propaganda".
Former neighbours in Billericay told how as she got to know her husband, whom she married in 1997, Mrs Matonga threw herself into the African scene in London.
One recalled: "She would go dancing at these events and once came back breathless saying, 'I was the only white person there'.
She loved that. I think she felt special."
Yesterday Mrs Matonga's mother, 68-year-old Joan Pout, defended her daughter. She said: "I am white, pure bred white and I am not a racist. Neither is Anne."
"Daily Mail", Friday, September 27, 2002, pp. 30-31.
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