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Zimbabwe: Farmers Case May Force SADC to Act
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SW Radio Africa (London)
ANALYSIS
18 July 2008
Posted to the web 18 July 2008
Tererai Karimakwenda
A SADC Summit, due to meet in South Africa in August, could find itself confronted with a serious decision to make regarding one of their member states, Zimbabwe.
Lawyers representing the Zimbabwe government walked out of a hearing at the SADC Tribunal in Namibia on Thursday, after a group of Zimbabwean farmers asked that the government be held in contempt, for breaching an interim order granted by the court in December, 2007.
The order stipulated that the government would not interfere with the farmers' operations and would halt evictions until their case has been heard. Yet several farmers on the case have been evicted since then and others are being beaten and harassed by government-sponsored thugs.
Lawyer Jeremy Gauntlett, representing a group of 78 Zimbabwean farmers and their farm workers, said this was the fourth time the Tribunal had tried to hear arguments in the case. He explained that Thursday's hearing was again plagued by delaying tactics by the Zimbabwe government lawyers.
The head of the Tribunal, Judge Louis Mondhlane of Mozambique, appeared clearly upset by their behavior. He is quoted as saying: "The Tribunal had allowed the government of Zimbabwe several postponements. It has formed the view that the government was seeking at all costs to postpone these applications, and this while the Tribunal was trying to build a house of justice in the region."
Gauntlett appealed to the court to refer the case to the SADC summit due to take place in South Africa on August 15. He said if the Tribunal judges find the Zimbabwe government in contempt and present this to SADC, the regional leaders will have to decide on punitive measures on Zimbabwe as a member state. This could mean sanctions or expulsion from the regional grouping.
The government's lawyers were led by the Zimbabwean Ambassador to Namibia, Chipo Zindoga. She had been overheard earlier laughing about the brutal attack on farmer Ben Freeth, who was recently abducted along with his in-laws by known government thugs, and was brutally assaulted and tortured for hours before being dumped miles from their homes. Ironically it is evidence from this incident that she laughed about that ultimately made the contempt case against the Zimbabwe government.
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The 78 farmers are challenging the government's so-called land reform policies, saying that they discriminate according to race. They are also challenging Constitutional Amendment # 17, which the government introduced to deprive the farmers of their legal right to challenge evictions in court. Farm workers and their families are also represented in the Campbell case because they are being evicted, beaten and harassed by the government's youth militia and so-called war veterans.
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