Zimbabwe Crisis: Just where is Robert Mugabe right now?

PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA – APRIL 8: President Robert Mugabe during a media briefing on April 8, 2015

Mugabe does a U-turn, warns supporters against invading sugar plantations

Tongaat Hulett land is off-limits to Mugabe’s land invaders…

Zimbabwe Crisis: Just where is Robert Mugabe right now?

PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA – APRIL 8: President Robert Mugabe during a media briefing on April 8, 2015

Take what you want, give nothing back… that’s Robert Mugabe’s supporters’ motto, right? Well, kinda, unless it comes to the land belonging to the South African-owned Tongaat Hulett.

Almost immediately after the company complained that some ZANU PF supporters had invaded parts of their sugar cane plantations, Mugabe made a public statement all of the sudden encouraging Zimbabweans to work the land they have, instead of taking that which does not belong to them.

 “Surely, you cannot harvest where you did not sow,” Mugabe warned supporters in the  Masvingo province after Hulett reported that its plantations in the Lowveld were being targeted.

“We gave you the land. So, make fully use of it or seek skills from those with the know-how.”

In the meantime, Mugabe’s supporters continue looting Manicaland, despite hundreds of local petitioning for the return of Lesbury farm to its owner Robert Smart, who was forcefully removed from his property just over a week ago by Batty Bob’s police and ZANU PF thugs.

Related: 150 people left homeless after white Zim farmer’s eviction want him back. Report

Tongaat Hulett owns land in Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, Mozambique, Swaziland and Namibia and is one of the largest – and probably last – big employers in Zimbabwe, with some 10 000 employees.

It would seem as if one of two things has happened. Mugabe has either completely forgot that not long ago he forbade any foreign-owned companies from owning land in Zim; or he’s realised that there aren’t that many hands left to feed his failed state, so he’d best play by the corporation’s rules.