21 September 2009

A secret document, made public this weekend by a South African newspaper, details the plans the government has sanctioned to intensify the forcible seizure of commercial land across the country.

According to the Sunday Times, recommendations for intensified farm attacks have been authored by Lands Minister Herbert Murerwa, who presented the document to cabinet last month. The document, which is in the Sunday Times' possession, said that the "government should continue to acquire land" from white farmers, and also recommended that the "prosecution of farmers resisting to move off the acquired land should be expedited."

"The refusal by these former farm owners to vacate gazetted farms has disadvantaged 251 (beneficiaries of the land grab) who hold offer letters," Murerwa reportedly said in the paper.

The document appears to confirm speculation that the new wave of farm invasions is the result of a directive from the top levels of the government, despite the Global Political Agreement that committed the government to "ensure security of tenure for all land holders." Such a document could also be the cause of the recent intensified attacks on farmers, both physically and in the courts. Just last week, tobacco farmer Murray Pott was brutally beaten by land invaders, while cattle farmer Mike Surtees was convicted after a lengthy court battle for 'failing to vacate' his farm.

The revelations of the cabinet document come after Robert Mugabe last week implored investors to plough cash into the country, saying at a mining indaba that "the sanctity of property rights and the rule of law in all its dimensions are fully respected." But it is obvious that Mugabe was merely trying to butter-up potential investors, as the secret cabinet document continued that "no foreigner should be allowed to own rural agricultural land," which "should be excluded from the protection afforded by the bilateral investment promotion and protection agreements."

The South African government meanwhile has made no move to protect their citizens in Zimbabwe, who have already lost farms or are facing imminent land seizure. South African farmer Louis Fick has been forced off his farm, where his livestock worth more than US$250 000 are now at risk of starving to death. Fick was evicted from his Friedawel Farm by Edward

Mashiringwani, the deputy governor of the Reserve Bank, who arrived on the farm with 15 'bodyguards' and started threatening and harassing Fick's staff. Fick has since been barred from entering the farm, and about 1000 pigs and 100 piglets are being left to starve. Local journalists who tried to gain entry to the farm over the weekend have reported hearing the "eerie squeals of hundreds of starving pigs."

Fick is one of 78 commercial farmers who won a landmark legal battle in the human rights court of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) last year. The Tribunal ordered the government to protect the farmers' rights to their land, and this year ruled the government in contempt for ignoring the earlier ruling. The government has since been in the process of 'pulling out' of the Tribunal, saying it will not respect any current, or future rulings of the court.

African lawyers have since warned that Zimbabwe's blatant disregard of regional court rulings was setting a bad precedence for respect of continental bodies and called on the African Union (AU) and SADC to take decisive measures to defend their institutions of justice, before they become irrelevant. Representatives of the African bar associations and rule of law organizations said in a statement that "failure by the SADC and AU leadership to vigorously defend regional and sub-regional judicial organs from such a blatant assault is likely to have a contagion effect throughout the continent."

allafrica