White farmers face eviction after court rules against them

By Henry Makiwa
11 October 2007

Eleven white commercial farmers will go on trial for defying a government eviction order after they lost a bid on Thursday to stay on their land.
The ruling heightens fears that the estimated 350 white farmers left in the country will face a fresh wave of evictions by the Robert Mugabe regime.
The farmers court application to stay on their land was dismissed by magistrate Tinashe Ndokera who described it as “frivolous and vexatious” and “a delaying tactic”.
Ndokera told a packed courtroom that: “I am persuaded to agree with the state that it's a delaying tactic and there is no seriousness but a mere attempt to buy time through abuse of process.”
The farmers’ lawyer David Drury immediately said they would appeal against the ruling in the Supreme Court.
The farmers, all from the northwestern Mashonaland West Province, were given a September 30th ultimatum to vacate their properties. They were summoned to a magistrate's court in Chegutu, 100 kilometres northwest of Harare, last week to answer charges of breaching the Land Consequential Provisions Act after their land was earmarked for expropriation.
According to the act the farmers face jail terms if tried and convicted.
John Worsley-Worsick, spokesman for the farmers' pressure group Justice for Agriculture (JAG), said there was much concern among farmers as the eleven were being ordered off their properties after planting their crops.
He said: “The trend since last year shows that this regime has not been working logically, let alone through the due course of the law. There is a humanitarian crisis that the nation faces in hunger and starvation, and you would think the government would need to keep producing with the summer rains coming. Not them!”
The number of commercial farmers has plummeted from about 4 500 before 2000, when the government embarked on its controversial ‘fast-track’ land reform programme.
The government insists its program to nationalize white-owned farms was completed more than a year ago, but farmers' groups have since reported continued land seizures and arrests of owners. The seizure of land escalated a month ago with the army now actively involved in the intimidation of the farmers.