White farmers in court for growing crops
Johannesburg - Ten white farmers appeared in court in Zimbabwe yesterday accused of growing crops on their land - in a country where millions of people will need food aid within the next few months. The case in Chegutu district, 70 miles southwest of Harare, exposes the perversity of President Robert Mugabe's policies. Commerical agriculture was the mainstay of the economy in the days when Zimbabwe was a food exporter. Since 2000, when the government began seizing white-owned farms, many of them violently, the agricultural sector has collapsed and the economy has gone into freefall, with inflation now at 6,600 per cent, the highest in the world. The World Food Programme estimates that it will be feeding 4.1 million Zimbabweans, one third of the population, by the end of the year. But none of that has stopped the Zanu PF regime. Now the Chegutu group is charged with violating the Consequential Provisions Act, which gave the few hundred remaining white farmers a final deadline of Sep 30 to leave their land and homes. The colonial-era Chegutu courtroom was packed by the so-called "war veterans" who are Mr Mugabe's staunch supporters, and "beneficiaries" who stand to be given the properties should the 10 be convicted. Among them are Edna Madzongwe, the speaker of parliament, and Nathan Shamuyarira, a former information minister and one of President Robert Mugabe's closest aides. The farmers, aged from 38 to 75, produce a variety of food from chickens to oranges and have already given two-thirds of their farms to the government for resettlement. All but one still work their remaining land intensively and say they intend to try to continue.
They were remanded on bail and their lawyer David Drury sought to have the case referred to the supreme court, which is due to rule on the constitutionality of the land law. They pleaded not guilty and face up to two years in prison if convicted. "We have also said that no farmer has received any payment of any kind whatsoever and that the way compensation is decided means farmers would be paid nothing, given that Zimbabwe's inflation rate is over 6,000 per cent," he added. But a prominent lawyer in Harare said the courts were blocking urgent applications over land cases. "The atmosphere in the courts has changed dramatically in the last week," he said. Didymus Mutasa, the lands minister, has said that the few hundred remaining white farmers will be forced out, one way or another. "The position is that food shortages or no food shortages, we are going ahead to remove the remaining whites," he said recently. "Too many blacks are still clamouring for land and we will resettle them on the remaining farms." In fact many farms were given to members of the government and their cronies, and one minister has admitted that the new farmers have failed in their cultivation efforts. Outside the court, the scruffy shops of Chegutu were empty of basic foods, and street vendors sold small, sour oranges. They came from a once-prolific citrus farm in the district now devastated after it was seized by Bright Matonga, the deputy information minister, earlier this year.
From Business Day (SA), 6 October
Farmer fights land grab
One of Zimbabwe's last remaining white commercial farmers has, in a last desperate bid to stop Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe giving his farm to Zanu PF cronies, taken his case to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal in Windhoek. Central to Michael Campbell's application to the tribunal is the contention that the land acquisition process is racist and illegal under a host of international legal instruments, not the least being the SADC treaty and the African Union Charter. The action will be a major test for the SADC and the tribunal, which is established through a protocol attached to the SADC treaty. It empowers the tribunal to adjudicate disputes between member states, and individuals and member states. It is apparently the first such dispute to be taken to the tribunal since it was established in 2000. Zimbabwe is a signatory to both the treaty and the tribunal. In papers, Campbell contends that the tribunal has jurisdiction because the treaty and other instruments outlaw arbitrary government action based on race. The papers, which will be lodged with the tribunal on Monday, contain a litany of abuse by Zimbabwe's security forces, invasions of the Chegutu farm and the comprehensive failure of the supreme court of Zimbabwe to rule on an application by Campbell to have the acquisition declared unlawful. The case is to be argued before the tribunal by top South African advocate Jeremy Gauntlett SC. Also in the papers is a shocking list of "chefs" who have taken over the arbitrarily confiscated farms in the Chegutu district. Campbell's farm is earmarked for N Shamuyarira, a Zanu PF spokesman and minister.
The number of white commercial farmers has shrunk from 6000 to about 500. White farmers are also being steadily driven off their farms in a process that has accelerated in recent weeks. Those who fail to leave are arrested and some imprisoned. So far about 500 000 farmworkers and their families have been forced into limbo and they survive in either rural or urban slums in dire conditions. The outcome of the action is vital to the future of remaining farmers and those workers who remain on the farms. The papers say that while hundreds of thousands of workers have been forced off the land, "the land reform programme has benefited only the elite - security force officers, Politburo members, their family members and (most regrettably) judges". At the heart of the case is the amendment to the Zimbabwean constitution, rammed through parliament by Zanu PF MPs, which allows arbitrary acquisition of land and companies. This, the papers claim, "undermines the fundamental structure and violates the essential or core values of the constitution, which previously recognised and provided protection to these human rights through an assertion of those rights through due process". The point is that Zimbabwe's parliament was not authorised by the constitution to change the constitution in this way. The application seeks an order from the tribunal declaring that the changes to the constitution violate the human rights protections of the SADC treaty. They also seek a "declarator" that the treaty has been violated, because article six says that "member states shall not discriminate against any person on the grounds of gender, religion, political views, race, ethnic origin, culture, ill-health or disability or such other grounds".
A restraint or interdict is also sought to stop the Zimbabwean government from arbitrarily acquiring the Campbell farm. Ironically, the farm was purchased in 1999 and the Zimbabwean government declared at the time that it had no interest in the property. Mugabe's land grabs began a year later in 2000. The farm was first hit by summary unlawful invasions in 2001 and since then there have been threats of violence against which the law enforcement authorities have failed to act. The entire process, which has seen multiple applications to the courts in Zimbabwe, has not been without pain and tragedy. The papers record that malaria brought onto the farm by invaders was responsible for the deaths of a daughter-in-law and her twin children. "Personal suffering of the farm's employees, their families and my family has been acute," Campbell says in papers. A Supreme Court action mounted in March this year had judgment reserved. Since then, the court has not responded to inquiries about the case, meaning that the court had declined to exercise its jurisdiction. "The applicants have clearly exhausted their remedies under Zimbabwe municipal law and … must seek, before this honourable tribunal, to enforce compliance by the president of Zimbabwe, representing this government, with the international law obligations he himself accepted for Zimbabwe when he personally signed the SADC Treaty on Zimbabwe's behalf," the papers claim.
