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White
farmers mull joint legal challenge against Mugabe
Simplicious Chirinda, ZimOnline
January 21, 2008
http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=2581
HARARE – Dispossessed
white farmers say they are mulling a joint legal challenge to President
Robert Mugabe’s controversial land reforms, emboldened by a regional
tribunal’s encouraging handling of a Zimbabwean farmer’s appeal
against seizure of his land.
The Southern African
Development Community (SADC) Tribunal last December barred Mugabe’s
government from evicting William Michael Campbell from his farm
pending a ruling on an application by the white farmer challenging
the legality of Harare’s programme to seize white land for redistribution
to landless blacks.
Campbell first
appealed against seizure of his property at Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court
last March but resorted to the Tribunal after what his lawyers said
was "unreasonable delay" by the country’s highest court
in dealing with his case.
The Namibia-based
Tribunal is expected to deliver its final ruling on the matter this
month.
Justice
for Agriculture (JAG), a pressure group for white farmers, said
a joint application by dispossessed farmers would help bring to
finality all land disputes between farmers and Mugabe’s government.
"We are looking
at different ways in which we can have these cases brought to finality
and one of them is to mount a joint application," said JAG
leader, John Worswick.
"We want
to see how the recent ruling by the SADC Tribunal in favour of Michael
Campbell can be spread to other farmers," he added.
The Commercial
Farmers Union (CFU), the main representative body for white Zimbabwean
farmers, said its members met in Harare last week to look at the
possibility of mounting a joint application to the Supreme Court
which could also be taken up to the regional Tribunal.
"We met as a think-tank
and we are putting before our members these suggestions so that
they can consider if they want to take that route," CFU president
Trevor Gifford.
Mugabe’s controversial
farm seizures have resulted in the majority of the about 4 000 white
farmers being forcibly ejected from their properties without being
paid compensation for the land, which the government has refused
to pay for saying it was stolen from blacks in the first place.
The government
has compensated some farmers for developments on the land such as
dams and farm buildings and say it is committed to compensating
all farmers for such improvements.
Land redistribution,
that Mugabe says was necessary to correct a colonial land ownership
system that reserved the best land for whites and banished blacks
to poor soils, is blamed for plunging Zimbabwe into food shortages
after Harare failed to support black villagers resettled on former
white farms with inputs to maintain production.
In his application
before the Tribunal, Campbell wants the regional body to find Harare
in breach of its obligations as a member of SADC after it signed
into law Constitution
of Amendment No. 17 two years ago.
The constitutional
amendment allows the Harare government to seize farmland without
compensation and bars courts from hearing appeals from dispossessed
white farmers.
The white farmer
also said in papers filed with the regional body that Mugabe’s land
reforms were racist and illegal under the SADC treaty adding that
Article 6 of the SADC treaty bars member states from discriminating
against any person on the grounds of gender, religion, race, ethnic
origin and culture.
Zimbabwe is a
signatory to the SADC treaty. – ZimOnline
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