Publications
Partners
Cape Town - One hundred and fifty-two of the estimated 400 white farmers remaining in Zimbabwe are currently facing prosecution, according to a media statement by the Commercial Farmers' Union circulated here on Thursday.
Last week five were found guilty of remaining on their farms and ordered to vacate their properties. They were also given fines of around US$300.
"A total of 12 farmers and 34 workers have been convicted to date, heightening insecurity in the agricultural sector countrywide," the statement said. "Farmers who continue to occupy and use their farms face prosecution and imprisonment."
According to the statement there has been a dramatic scaling up of violence against the few remaining Zimbabwean commercial farmers and their workers, and it is cause for great concern, both for food security in Zimbabwe and for the region.
Farmers are being driven from their farms by beneficiaries who have been fraudulently allocated the farms on the basis of a previous listing of their farm(s) in a Government Gazette, the existence of an offer letter issued at the sole discretion of a minister or land officer in favour of the listed farm(s) in question, fraudulently generated offer letters, or taking the law into their own hands.
"The beneficiaries are from all walks of life including government ministers or related families, force officers [army, police and the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO)] and senior businessmen," the Union said.
"The prevailing unjust legal position is such that, if a matter can be classified as 'political', as is the case with all matters relating to land, then the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) refuse to carry out their constitutional duties, leaving commercial farmers and farmworkers unprotected by the law."
Deon Theron, the president of the union, said: "Owing to the ongoing violations of commercial farmers and their workers, the prosecution threats and lack of security of tenure, the majority of commercial farmers will not be able to plant crops this season.
"The estimated tonnage of maize, the staple food crop, for the 2009/2010 season is just 500 000 tonnes from 2 043 000 tonnes in 2000."
- I-Net Bridge
