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From Beeld (SA), 12 January (translated)

Another five white Zim farmers' farms to be seized in the next few days

Sarel van der Walt

The farms of at least a further five white framers in the east of Zimbabwe are likely to be seized in the next few days. "It is getting wild here. They are chasing us like flies. They won't stop until every white farmer has been chased from his farm," Mrs Antoninette Grobler (59) from Geluk Farm in the Nyazura district near Mutare said to Beeld yesterday afternoon. Mr Dolf du Toit (66) and his wife Alida (61), who were driven from their farm in the same district last week, are currently staying with Grobler, her husband Janse (65) and son Paul (35). Like the Groblers, they are South African citizens. Mr Paul du Toit was informed last night that the five remaining white farmers in the area will be violently removed from their farms from today. The order allegedly came from Mr Didymus Mutasa, a former Zimbabwean minister of land, and Temba Maliswa, who, according to information received, is the driving force behind the land invasions. The Groblers' 40 ha tobacco farm has been allocated to a businesswoman from the area.

"Although we farmed for 18 years in South Africa (near Nelspruit), the Zimbabean farm has been in our family since 1945. Over the years we have complied with all the land demands and have given up more than 1000 ha to land reform. All we now have left is the 40 ha, Mrs Grobler said. "Not one of us has other homes to got to. All our money is here in Zimbabwe. A few years ago, the government removed more that 15 zeros from our money. A tobacco company lent us money before this season to plant tobacco," Grobler said. "The first man they plan to chase away is Kosie Smith (also a South African). They had already taken away all his land in 2000. All he had left was the house in which he was living. He leased another farm and cultivated it." The Zimbabwean newspaper The Sunday Mail on the weekend quoted Mr Herbert Murerwa, minister of lands and resettlement as asking those who had benefited from the country's land reform programme not to lease their land to white commercial farmers. If they did so, their land could be taken away, Mr Murerwa said.

From Sapa, 12 January

AfriForum fights for Zimbabwe farmers

Johannesburg - The civil rights movement AfriForum will launch an urgent bid at the North Gauteng Supreme Court to cite the Zimbabwean government as a party to a court application against the country. AfriForum legal representative Willie Spies said on Monday that the purpose was to get permission from the court to send an edictorial citation to the Zimbabwean government to declare them as a respondent, in an attempt to enforce the ruling of the SADC Tribunal of 2008 against the country. "As the respondent is another country, we need permission from the court to send the citation to their government," said Spies. "This is basically just a first step in the legal process which will give us permission for us to send a lawyer to them to deliver the court papers," said Spies. AfriForum intends to get the SADC Tribunal's ruling registered and enforced in South Africa.

"The SADC Tribunal ruled in November 2008 that the land reform process of President Robert Mugabe is illegal and racist, and ordered that compensation had to be paid to farmers who had already been expropriated, as well as that farmers, who still are on their farms, had to be left in peace," said Spies. Spies said the ruling had two aspects to it. The first was that Zimbabwe had to pay the farmers' legal costs and the other was that it had to pay compensation to farmers whose land had been expropriated. Should the SADC ruling be enforced in South Africa and the Zimbabwean government refused to pay, Spies said it could theoretically mean that Zimbabwe's assets in South Africa could be seized. "We want South Africa as a member state of SADC to recognise SADC's binding ruling," said Spies. "This is just the first small step in the legal process."

Spies said that since the ruling, farm invaders had continued their actions, assaulting farmer Michael Campbell cruelly and chasing him from his farm. Another farmer, Louis Fick, had also been driven from his farm and was facing criminal prosecution because he did not heed to notices to leave his farm immediately. "The Zimbabwean government meanwhile has stepped up its land-grabbing programme. The Zimbabwean government's spokesperson, Temba Mliswa, yesterday indicated in the Zimbabwean Sunday Mail that his government is committed to driving all white farmers from the country," said Spies. The Zimbabwean government had also indicated that it intended using the army to drive the remaining farmers from their farms, said Spies. While the South African government signed a bilateral agreement with Zimbabwe for the promotion and protection of mutual investments (Bippa), the campaign included the targeting of South African citizens. "AfriForum has already requested the South African government formally to use its newly obtained bargaining power with Bippa to protect South Africans in Zimbabwe, but the South African government has indicated that Bippa first has to be ratified by the Zimbabwean Parliament before this can happen."

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John aka NitroX

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