Alamein Farm, also known as Ruzambu Farm, is a 5,000 hectare

Hectare

The hectare is a metric unit of area defined as 10,000 square metres , and primarily used in the measurement of land. In 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as being 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1/100 km2...

 farm at Beatrice

Beatrice

Beatrice is a name derived from the Latin name Beatrix. It is a feminine form of the late Latin name Viator which meant "voyager, traveler". It was also a common name amongst early Christians, though the spelling was altered by association with the Latin beatus, meaning "blessed". The French form...

, in the Mashonaland East

Mashonaland East

Mashonaland East is a province of Zimbabwe. It has an area of 32,230 km² and a population of approximately 1.1 million . Marondera is the capital of the province.-Districts:Mashonaland East is divided into eight districts:* Chikomba* Goromonzi...

 area of Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...

, 72 km south of the capital Harare

Harare

Harare before 1982 known as Salisbury) is the largest city and capital of Zimbabwe. It has an estimated population of 1,600,000, with 2,800,000 in its metropolitan area . Administratively, Harare is an independent city equivalent to a province. It is Zimbabwe's largest city and its...

. It was a highly productive commercial farming operation, employing around one thousand people and producing large quantities of tobacco

Tobacco

Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...

, maize

Maize

Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...

 & Rhodes grass, as well as cattle and farmed game. The farm gained notoriety in 2002, when General Solomon Mujuru

Solomon Mujuru

Solomon Mujuru, also known as Rex Nhongo was a Zimbabwean military officer and politician who led Robert Mugabe's guerrilla forces during the Rhodesian Bush War. He was from the Zezuru clan. In post-independence Zimbabwe, he went on to become army chief before leaving government service in 1995...

 and his wife, Zimbabwean Vice President Joice Mujuru, evicted the farm owner and all farm inhabitants. under the auspices of the Land Reform Programme

Land reform in Zimbabwe

Land reform in Zimbabwe officially began in 1979 with the signing of the Lancaster House Agreement, an effort to more equitably distribute land between the historically disenfranchised blacks and the minority-whites who ruled Zimbabwe from 1890 to 1979...

 and became the first of President Robert Mugabe

Robert Mugabe

Robert Gabriel Mugabe is the President of Zimbabwe. As one of the leaders of the liberation movement against white-minority rule, he was elected into power in 1980...

's inner circle to be found guilty of unlawful land seizures. Under General Mujuru, the farm continued to produce tobacco, maize and game. Farm workers also produced their own tobacco on land allocated to them.

Further notoriety was to follow in August 2011, with the death of General Mujuru in the farm homestead in circumstances that many commentators and politicians describe as suspicious.