With specific reference to the case of granite mining in the Mutoko District in Zimbabwe, the author argues that while the state continues to hold rights to communal land, and freehold tenure is prohibited, Zimbabweans are being denied rights: in this case, a say in, and compensation for, damage to `their' land caused by mining. The author compares the current injustice to the `inequitable bias' with which tenure was distributed in the 1950s.