Farmer evicted

Catherine Jouineau-Meredith’s Twyford Farm has been forcibly acquired and handed over to Zanu (PF) Mashonaland West Province executive committee member and businessman Jimayi Muduuri. The farm was supposedly protected from compulsory acquisition by a BIPPA between Zimbabwe and France and a Final Order from the Harare High Court stating that it could not be taken over without violating the international agreement.

Jouineau-Meredith was forced to leave the farm after a magistrate in Chegutu threatened to jail her. Chegutu magistrate Tinashe Ndokera on March 18 ordered Jouineau-Meredith to vacate the farm within seven days. He threatened to send her to jail for 30 days or fine her $200 if she resisted. Ndokera also included an ‘unusual’ clause in his judgement instructing the police to ensure that she complied.

Ndokera said the farm had to be emptied of all its contents by March 26. “The Magistrate said that I had no right to stay on the farm and that I was occupying the land unlawfully because I didnt have either a permit, an offer letter or a lease. He therefore proved that a Bippa or a Final Order from the Zimbabwean High Court had no power at all against the Land Reform.

“This is a very worrying state of affairs where a countryside magistrate in Chegutu can actually supersede a High Court Judge or an International Agreement like the Bippa,” a disheartened Jouineau-Meredith told The Zimbabwean.

The case has thrown a damper on the inclusive government’s efforts to attract much-needed foreign investment to bring the country’s economy out of the doldrums into which it has been plunged by a decade of plunder by Mugabe and his cronies.

Jouineau-Meredith said, “I personally advise all potential investors to think twice before they decide to invest in Zimbabwe as their investment is obviously not secure and can be whisked away without any compensation.”

Sources in Chegutu said Muduuri and his supporters taunted the farmer outside the courthouse and threatened her after the judgement was passed. They said he was being rewarded for his loyalty to Zanu (PF), of which he was a parliamentary candidate in the 2008 elections. He lost dismally to the MDC. Zimbabwe has lost billions of dollars in foreign investment since Mugabe and his violent supporters started the farm seizures in 2000. More than 4000 farmers have been forcibly removed from their properties since then. Mugabe has refused to compensate the farmers.