The largely white Commercial Farmers Union said police officers in Matabeleland were actually the main people involved in the jambanjas (violent evictions) and arrests and prosecutions of farmers. In Matabeleland the police are allegedly actually placed on several properties to ensure that all work is stopped; that the workers do not return to the property; and to prevent the farmer from returning home; and if he does to summarily arrest and detain him, the union said in a weekly bulletin to its members.
In Manicalands volatile Chipinge district, police officers are allegedly turning a blind eye to the looting and destruction, the
union said. The union spoke as co-Home Affairs Minister Giles Mutsekwa last week ordered Police Commissioner General Augustine Chihuri to ensure that the people causing disturbances on commercial farms are arrested. Mutsekwa, from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirais MDC-T party, said he was worried that the police were doing nothing to stop the serious farm invasions taking place around the country.
I received phone calls from Manicaland province that there were serious farm invasions and that the police were not doing anything
about it despite the farmers having court orders. I have talked to Police Commissioner General and I want to assume things are okay now, Mutsekwa said. According to the CFU, the remaining white farmers are being persecuted for using the courts to prevent Mugabes supporters from occupying the looted farms. The white farmers have during the past few months been subjected to arrests, abductions and illegal occupation of their properties.
Mugabe has repeatedly ignored court rulings against his controversial land reform programme that has seen more than 4 000 former white farmers losing their properties to black peasants. In one of the cases, a group of farmers in 2008 won its appeal against Zimbabwes farm seizures at the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal but Mugabe has refused to enforce the regional courts judgment, describing it as nonsensical and of no consequence. The Tribunal in November 2008 declared Mugabes land reform programme discriminatory, racist and illegal under the SADC Treaty.
The Tribunal directed the Zimbabwe government not to seize land from the 79 farmers who had appealed to the Namibia-based court and said Harare must compensate those it had already evicted from their farms. The regional court is yet to pass judgement on a subsequent contempt of court case brought by the farmers against Mugabe.
Post published in: News