HARARE The German owners of plantations at the centre of last months diplomatic stand-off between Harare and Berlin have asked the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) to arbitrate in their dispute with Zimbabwe over damages. The von Pezold family, which owns Makandi Tea and Coffee Estate, Border Timbers Estate and Forester Estate that were invaded by Zanu (PF) supporters in June, has asked the ICSID to arbitrate in its conflict in Harare.
In case number ARB/10/15, Bernhard von Pezold and others are suing the government of Zimbabwe for loss of income during the three-week-long stand-off between the German investors and marauding gangs from President Robert Mugabes party.
The case was registered on the roll of the Paris-based tribunal on July 8, a few days after the Harare regime finally bowed to pressure from the Germany embassy to order
The Harare government had previously refused to act against the illegal occupants who claimed they were allocated the properties under Mugabes controversial land reform programme.
It only ordered the armed and alcoholic mob off the farms after German threatened to withhold aid to Zimbabwe, which totalled more than US$50 million in 2009.
The illegal land occupiers are believed to have looted maize and other crops valued at more than US$1 million since moving onto the farms on June 18.
The properties are covered by a bilateral investment promotion and protection agreement (BIPPA) between Zimbabwe and Germany in 1995 but which came into force in 2000.
The agreement precludes any farms owned by Germans from expropriation under Zimbabwes controversial land reform programme.
The advent of the land reform programme in 2000 saw Mugabes former regime acquiring white-owned farms including agricultural investments covered by BIPPAs, resulting in disputes with foreign investors.
The Harare administration, which has over the past nine years seized nearly all land previously owned by the countrys about 4 000 white farmers and gave it over to blacks, has in the past maintained it would not pay for the land because white colonial authorities stole it from blacks in the first place.
But several foreign nationals whose farms in Zimbabwe were seized by the government have dragged the Harare administration before international and regional courts demanding compensation for the loss of their properties.
A group of Dutch nationals in April 2009 won its case against the Harare regime after appealing to the ICSID for compensation for loss their properties.
The Dutch farmers argued that their properties were protected by a bilateral investment treaty under which Harare promised to pay full compensation to Dutch nationals in disputes arising out of any investments in Zimbabwe.
Several countries among them Austria, France, Germany, Mauritius, Holland, South Africa, Sweden and Malaysia signed investment protection agreements with Zimbabwe.
Post published in: Politics