5.3
Violation of traditional values by the Village Head
The villagers argued that the church was built on grazing land and that there was a
letter from the District Administrator’s office dated 24 June 2005 which stated that no
structure was allowed to be built on that land and no one was allowed to cultivate on it.
The office of the District Administrator reaffirmed the position in writing in 2016.
Villagers alleged that the village head and the Chief of their area were disposing of the
communal grazing land in a corrupt manner. They further advised that the village head
confessed at a village meeting that he had received money from the church leaders to
allocate them that land. The villagers stated that they were concerned that the church
was built on a place where they take stones for their burials because in their culture
they are not buried in sand. They also use the stones for building their homes. They
said the place was their cultural heritage with a respectable grave and they perform
their cultural rituals there.
They further stated that over the past ten years three
villagers tried to build on that land but they were reprimanded by the community. The
villagers indicated that there was an area allocated for building churches in the
community where other churches were built. They further stated that, grazing land was
already scarce in their area hence their cattle would not have anywhere to graze if the
land was constructed on.
5.4
The Public Prosecutor failing to represent state witnesses
Complainant and villagers complained that they were being summoned to attend Court
but when they get to Court only one person testifies and they are required to go back to
Court at a later date that is communicated to them by the Court. They said this was
disrupting their work since it was harvest time and they were using a lot of money since
each person required eights dollars for transport to travel to and from Court per day. At
one point they were arrested for contempt of Court when they failed to attend Court
because they did not have transport fares. They were also outraged that the
investigating officer did not include in complainant’s statement the fact that Constable
Dzimano indecently assaulted Complainant.
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