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Former
farmers take Mugabe to US court
Everson
Mushava, NewsDay
October 31, 2012
https://www.newsday.co.zw/2013/10/31/former-farmers-take-mugabe-us-court/
Former Zimbabwe
white commercial farmers have taken President Robert Mugabe’s
government to United States courts where they are demanding compensation
and challenging the compulsory acquisition of their farms under
the land reform programme.
Agriculture,
Mechanisation and Irrigation Development minister Joseph Made told
delegates attending the Alpha Media Holdings (AMH) Conversations
in Harare yesterday that Lands minister Douglas Mombeshora was attending
the court case in the US.
“Those
with questions for Mombeshora can ask. I am also representing the
Minister of Lands, who is in America to attend a court case in which
the government has been challenged by some commercial farmers,”
Made said.
He said taking
the government to court by the Commercial Farmers’ Union defied
the spirit of dialogue between the two parties.
President Mugabe’s
administration has been fighting court battles with some commercial
farmers who lost their farms at the height of the land reform programme
in 2002.
Mugabe’s
move to take the land from the white commercial farmers without
compensation created a serious stand-off between the country and
the Western powers, particularly Zimbabwe’s former colonial
master Britain, whose citizens controlled the country’s prime
land.
The ensuing
face-off resulted in Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party members being
placed on travel and trade restrictions.
Several efforts
by the displaced farmers to challenge Mugabe in the country’s
courts yielded no results, until the farmers approached the Sadc
Tribunal in Namibia before the regional court halted operations
amid pressure from Mugabe’s regime. Made said there was need
for government to support infrastructural development on new farms,
and support the whole value chain by lowering the costs of production.
Speaking at
the same event, Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa said the government
was looking for public-private partnerships with business to attract
foreign investment in every sector of the economy, including infrastructural
development and agriculture.
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