Perspective, Stephen Mpofu
BECAUSE of their multi-utilitarian services or usages, cattle are an important national asset to Zimbabwe as well as to other countries.

In this country where, for instance, rural folk make up 70 percent of the overall population, cattle are a source of nutrients in the form of beef and milk which are also important health derivatives for the remaining 30 percent made up of urban dwellers in addition to income for families, and, more importantly livestock provide the bulk of draught power to villagers.

It is for their important sustenance of human lives that anyone who wantonly tempers with livestock should incur the wrath of the law for indirectly sabotaging both a country’s economy as well as people’s existence.

Today Zimbabweans living along the country’s porous borders, especially in Matabeleland South province as well as in Masvingo and Manicaland provinces, periodically experience raids on their livestock by thieves sneaking in from across the borders.

Most recent reports from Bulilima and Mangwe districts speak of Botswana police shooting cattle stolen from this country but with the thieves getting away scot-free because killing the beasts also destroys evidence for the prosecution of the offenders.

According to a report in this paper four days ago, Botswana police killed 68 beasts worth $35 000 between January and April this year in Nswazi, Bulilima district, the police national anti-stock theft coordinator, Senior Assistant Commissioner Erasmus Makodza, told an anti-stock theft meeting on Friday last week.

He said there was a need for authorities to revisit the shoot-to-kill policy under which Botswana police destroy cattle stolen from this country as well as strays, because the policy “affects Zimbabwe’s national herd by obviously depleting it”.

The Batswana jealously guard their cattle posts and will obviously not entertain anyone tempering with their national herd.

It is therefore strange that the police in that country refuse an engagement with their Zimbabwean counterparts to resolve the challenge that sticks out, like a sore thumb and no doubt embitters relations between the otherwise two friendly Sadc peoples.

Reports of cross-border thefts of cattle have also been reported in Masvingo and Manicaland provinces which border Mozambique.

Zimbabwe recently introduced Command Livestock following the successful Command Agriculture which is likely to restore this country’s status as the food basket of southern Africa.

Command livestock is meant to boost our national herd and with that foreign revenue from beef exports that Zimbabwe previously enjoyed but which have since become a mere proverb today.

Flurries of activity are reportedly already underway in Matabeleland as well as in Masvingo for a huge Command Livestock take off.

It is likely that the lucrative national restocking scheme will appetise foreign stock thieves for increased forays into the country, but obviously not without reprisals by Zimbabwe cattle owners.

It is common knowledge that violent wars have periodically been waged across borders in some western African countries over stock thefts.

In the case in point here, Zimbabwe and Botswana enjoy excellent relations as members of Sadc and so the governments of the two countries should do everything possible to ensure that our porous border does not sour those relations with Zimbabwe taking retaliatory measures over the theft or slaughter of cattle that are stolen or wander across the common border. Moreover, animals, unlike human beings, do not decide that succulent grass or green crops across an unmarked border or boundary are alien and therefore forbidden to end up in their cud.

Now those authorities on the other side of the border who spurn dialogue to reach an amicable solution over the “shoot-to-kill policy” — where exactly do they think a solution to the problem will be found?

Or do they subscribe to the controversial Donald Trump concrete wall along the border between Mexico and the United States, a structure that might even become an impediment to free travel between Zimbabwe and Botswana? If so, who must pay for that barrier anyway?

Or is a need for armed guards from Zimbabwe lining up along the border to prevent strays as well as shut out cattle thieves from Botswana, a thing that is implicit in the refusal by police on the other side of the border to engage their Zimbabwean counterparts in a search for an amicable solution to the cattle thefts that have obviously embittered ties between Zimbabwean villagers and their counterparts in Botswana?

Whatever the case might be, there appears to be an urgent and imperative need for our two friendly sister states to engage at the highest Government level to find a durable solution to both the thefts as well as the straying of cattle across that common border.

At the same time, it is also incumbent for Zimbabwean villagers to ensure the security of their animals within our own border to thwart potential thieves.

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