140 farmers face prosecution, eviction

February 17, 2009

By Our Correspondent

HARARE - At least 140 commercial farmers face both prosecution and eviction
from their land over the next two weeks as government tries to push the few
remaining white farmers off their farms.

Police have also been told to "assist" in the eviction of the embattled
farmers even if they had court orders protecting them from the seizure of
their land by government.

Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) president, Hendriek Olivier told The Zimbabwe
Times Monday that over a hundred commercial farmers had been summoned to
various courts countrywide over the next two weeks allegedly for defying
government directives to vacate their land.

"We have some incidents still occurring of farmers being evicted and often
given 24 hour notices to vacate their farms," said Olivier.

"We still have some other disturbances of farm managers being locked up and
some farm owners forced to make accommodation available for Zanu-PF youths."

The move to grab the few remaining farms follows recommendations of a
workshop convened in Chegutu more than a week ago and attended by officials
from the Ministries of Lands, Justice and the police.

According to a memo (12/09), dated February 9, 2009 which was written by the
Police Provincial Intelligence Officer for Mashonaland West and sent to the
Officer Commanding Police Mashonaland West Province, the Chief Magistrate,
Herbert Mandeya ordered the courts to ignore the dictates of a November 2008
SADC Tribunal ruling that barred government from further expropriating white
owned land.

The ruling was made after 75 white Zimbabwean farmers approached the
Windhoek-based tribunal to seek an order to prevent government from
repossessing their farms under its controversial land reform programme.

According to the ruling, the applicants were found to have been
discriminated against on the grounds of race.

Government was also ordered to protect the possession, occupation and
ownership of the land by the applicants.

The tribunal also ordered that a handful of farmers whose land has already
been confiscated should receive compensation by June 30, 2009.

But Mandeya said the ruling by the tribunal "must be disregarded as it did
not form part of our law".

"He sighted (sic) Sec 111 (b) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe that provides
that treaties entered into by government cannot form part of our laws unless
they go through parliament," read the memo, which was copied to the Staff
Officer PISI, Police General Headquarters.

"In this regard SADC Tribunal ruling is not law binding."

The Attorney General, Johannes Tomana who was one of the facilitators of the
workshop, is also said to have scolded public prosecutors for "failing to
interpret correctly" the provisions of the Gazetted land (Consequential
Provisions) Act which he said had caused unnecessary delays in the trial of
the commercial farmers.

During the workshop, the Permanent Secretary in the Justice ministry, David
Mangota is reported to have assured the participants that High Court
interdicts against new beneficiaries "will be dealt with by a different
forum in the near future".

At the end of the meeting, reads the memo, the following were agreed by all
the participants; "that the recent SADC tribunal ruling shall not have any
bearing in the courts on matters to do with land.

"That lands officers together with law enforcement agents must do everything
in their power to assist in the eviction of former commercial farmers who
are refusing to vacate gazetted farms and whose cut off dates have elapsed.

"That cases pending trial at the courts should be finalized by the 21st of
February 2009."