Commercial farmers fight eviction

ourt ruling to stop the order. But legal experts said the chances of stopping the evictions were “close to nil.”
Civic society described the evictions of the remaining white farmers as “ethnic cleansing.”
The farmers were given until midnight on Monday to stop working the land and just over a month to leave entirely after President Robert Mugabe’s government gazetted a new draconian statutory instrument, the Gazetted Land (Consequential Provisions) Bill last week on Tuesday. Farmers with land targeted for seizure were ordered to stop their activities in 45 days from October 10. They must vacate by November 25 and could face two years in prison and a fine for doing farm-related work from Tuesday.
The order to stop farming was the latest shot by the government in its battle to seize white-owned farms for redistribution to landless blacks – which it asserts is needed to redress the imbalances of the colonial era. But critics said the seized farms would be doled to a few high ranking party faithful.
Agriculture Minister Joseph Made told state radio that the government was moving to finalize the farm seizures, and agricultural officials would soon be sub-dividing the targeted farms for redistribution to blacks.
“The problem with these people is that they believe that if they cry they are going to get this process reversed… But these farmers are fooling themselves because we are not going to accept again a situation where the indigenous (black) people of this country are denied land and just work for the whites.”