Dirk Visagie, a South African citizen, has been fighting to hold onto his Wantage Farm in Chegutu ever since he bought the property, legally, in 2001. Back then, he bought the farm from a government parastatal and even received a ‘certificate of no interest’ from the Lands Ministry.
But about a month later a local official called Timothy Madavanhu, the chairman of the rural district council, arrived to claim Visagie’s property as part of the land grab campaign. This was despite the fact that the offer letter Madavanhu received from the Land’s Ministry was not for Wantage farm.
Madavanhu insisted the Visagie property was the one he wanted and he soon initiated a campaign of harassment and intimidation that included moving hired thugs onto the property, breaking into the Visagie family home and lighting raging veld fires.
In 2007 Visagie was criminally charged for illegally occupying his home but the charges were eventually withdrawn after he pleaded not guilty. The intimidation continued over the following years and in January 2011 Visagie was again criminally charged for illegally occupying State land “without authority”.
This has now resulted in this week’s judgement by a Chegutu magistrate who pronounced a verdict of guilty, meaning Visagie has lost his rights to his farm. The invading Mudavanhu meanwhile has applied for permanent residence in Canada where his daughter and her family live.
Visagie was found guilty, along with farmer Andrew Ferreira, a former Zimbabwe Tobacco Association president, who faced the guilty verdict the same day. The pair are the last of 15 farmers in the district who were meant to be protected by a landmark ruling in the regional human rights Tribunal in 2008. The SADC court ruled that the land grab campaign was unlawful and ordered the then ZANU PF government to protect the remaining farmers. This never happened.
Instead the court was suspended by SADC leaders almost two years ago in what was widely regarded as a clear sign of loyalty to Robert Mugabe. The fate of that court is now set to be decided at the SADC Summit of regional leaders that got underway in Mozambique on Friday. An international campaign has continued to intensify for the court to be reinstated, with a strengthened human rights mandate, although there is serious concern the court’s mandate will be deliberately hobbled.
You can add your voice to the campaign by signing the petition to ‘Save the SADC Tribunal’: http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/save-the-sadc-tribunal SW Radio Africa
Post published in: Africa News