Tribunal declares Zimbabwean government in breach of SADC treaty

Mike Campbell, a commercial farmer from the Chegutu area of
Mashonaland West, lodged his application with the tribunal on 5 October
last year after numerous attempts by the government to seize his
legally purchased farm.

He and his workers also suffered ongoing victimisation and harassment.

In December, the tribunal ruled that Mr Campbell should be given
protection on his Mount Carmel farm until the case could be finalised.

Following the tribunal hearing on 28 March of this year, a total of 77
additional commercial farmers were given permission to join the case as
intervenors.  Both they and their workers were also given protection.

However, these rulings were not respected by the Government of Zimbabwe
(GOZ) and it continued to victimise and prosecute commercial farmers,
including many of those protected by the SADC ruling.

On 29 June, just two days after the Presidential run-off election, Mr
Campbell, his wife Angela and son-in-law Ben Freeth were brutally
attacked and abducted from their farm.

Later that night, with guns held to their heads, they were forced to
sign a piece of paper stating that they would withdraw the case from
the SADC tribunal.

A contempt application was immediately filed and was heard by the
tribunal on 16 July.  Mr Campbell was too severely injured to fly to
Windhoek but Mr Freeth attended in a wheel chair having undergone brain
surgery.

Friday's judgement by the SADC Tribunal noted that the Zimbabwean
government had violated the treaty governing the region by attempting
to seize the 77 white-owned commercial farms. 

The GOZ was directed to take all necessary steps to protect possession
and occupation of farms by the applicant farmers and to pay full and
fair compensation to the intervenor applicants who were off their farms
when the application was launched.

The GOZ was ordered to pay to the three affected farmers full and fair
compensation for their farms, including the land, in accordance with
accepted international customary law principles.  

Furthermore, the GOZ was ordered to pay the applicants' costs.

Commenting on the judgement, Josephat Tshuma from the Law Society of
Zimbabwe said: "This court has given us hope – there is now an
alternative to chaos."

Ben Freeth, Mike Campbell's son-in-law, who farms with him on Mount Carmel, agreed.

We cannot have a country where the law becomes irrelevant to the
political decisions of a morally corrupt hierarchy.  Today property
rights have been upheld and discrimination has been exposed, Freeth
concluded.

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