Posted on 06/02/2011 7:47:24 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
Zimbabwean farmers attend a meeting of white commercial farmers in capital Harare
Zimbabwe's Supreme Court heard a case on behalf of three farmers who claimed the constitution excluded confiscation of their land because they bought their properties after the colonial era ended with independence in 1980.
The Supreme Court did not agree and quickly dismissed their application.
One of the farmers, Colin Cloete, a former president of the Commercial Farmers’ Union at the height of often violent land invasions seven years ago, was one of the applicants.
He, like many of his colleagues, has been arrested, harassed and appeared in court many times, to try to stay on his farm.
Like most surviving white farmers, the cost of going to court to try to fight his eviction has been unaffordable.
Looking back over the long and difficult years, Cloete, now 58, said his struggle to remain on his farm did not make economic sense.
“Economically we should have moved off then, at the beginning, as we would have been 10 years younger and that much more energetic,” said Cloete.
Cloete said he had begun looking looking for a house in Harare, not least so he could move his possessions to safety.
He said the land invasions launched after Mr. Mugabe lost a referendum in 2000 had hurt him and Zimbabwe’s economy, and no one had benefited from this except the elite in the ZANU-PF Party.
“We are treated like second-class citizens, we are treated like we are still just visitors to this place. My father was born in this country, before Mr. Mugabe, but I am still a visitor,” said Cloete.
(Excerpt) Read more at voanews.com ...
On familyop's point -- I think US immigration policy is a joke. We send back skilled, good people (these guys are ace farmers) and keep lowskilled labor? Even in the universities, Phds are sent back to India or China or Korea and they improve those countries, but the US loses out.
Is it true that in Zimbabwe and Botswana there was no such apartheid against blacks by whites?
How very sad (understatement).
Thanks for the ping Clive.
How very sad (understatement).
Thanks for the ping Clive.
I can’t say I know enough to answer that truthfully.
I do believe that the blacks in Rhodesia had some issues, but I don’t remember the details.
So, I would rather not post something inaccurate.
There were still a few jurists of integrity until the last decade, That is why these farmers persisted; but the judges were threatened with bodily harm, and they resigned.
“She is sill there and still delusional, IMHO”
Yes, that’s the impression I get. Europeans in that neck of the woods should gun up or get out.
Kinda like parts of this country.
Thanks Clive for the ping.
They have no where to go — many cannot get out.
Blacks flee across the border to South Africa.
It’s like looking into a crystal ball and seeing the future.
Please leave and just let this country starve to death. Is there one African country that has been successful after killing off the white farmer?
Goa should have been Portugal’s lesson in demographics; the Indian population simply overwhelmed them. Instead, they’ve chosen to contract their numbers even further.
I don’t think they had the same rigid system SA did, but the country was ruled by whites with most land owned by whites, so blacks lived as serfs from what I understand. One difference was probably that Rhodesians were British-descended, while many of the whites in SA were Dutch-descended. After winning the Boer War, Britain made sure not to alienate the losers; they needed them to keep the grip on the country.
“Now Rhodesia’s name has been changed to “Zimbabwe” and it’s become just another starving third-world toilet. I wonder what happened?”
They lost their books and don’t have any more seeds.
Now sub-Saharan Africa is reverting to what it would have been without Western medicine & interaction. Soon all of the people will be gone, and it will be a giant preserve.
They worked and ate and raised families. Now they are raped, killed, burned, starved (because those farms that had been built up from nothing over generations by white settlers were taken over by Mugabe suck-ups and family members and they didn't plant, they can't, even if they cared to lift a fat finger because there is no seed, no machines, no livestock -- it was all destroyed or eaten). Now, if they're lucky, the black captives of brutal dictator thug Mugabe can escape across the border to South Africa.
It should be noted however that Mozambique and Zambia are offering 50 year leases to displaced Zimbabwe commercial farmers. They cannot bring their employees with them, as the host countries want their own nationals to be employed.
Mozambique places an obligation on the Zimbabwe commercial farmers to undertake to learn Portugese and to be able to communicate with employees in their native Shona. The secoond requirement is not a problem as most of the displaced farmers come from the Shona areas of Zimbabwe and their employees were Shona.
The Zanu PF thugs not only violently drove out the farm owners, they also displaced the farm employees thereby increasing the massive volkerwanderung that threatened to overwhelm adjoining countries, principally South Africa.
It is unfortunate that the west seems to be so reluctant to accept the commercial farmers. They are argarian experts of the first order, principally expert in dry land farming.
And to think there are people who can’t “see” or “recognize” evil in the world.
Thank you for the follow-up and information Clive.
Coming up on ten years:
“Zimbabwe court rules seizing of white-owned land legal”
Dec 5, 2001 - HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe’s top court has declared the government’s plan to seize white-owned farms legal, overturning its own previous ruling that the seizures were unconstitutional.
In a judgment released Tuesday, four of the five Supreme Court justices appointed to hear the new seizure case said they were satisfied the government’s “fast track” land nationalization program was lawful and “sufficiently complied” with the constitution.
Last year’s Supreme Court ruling declared the government’s methods of land seizures illegal and in breach of constitutional ownership rights and government land laws.
Some of the judges who made that ruling have been replaced in recent months.
Four of the five judges hearing the new case, including Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, were appointed recently by President Robert Mugabe. Those four voted to uphold the government’s land seizure program.
The Supreme Court traditionally had only five judges until Mugabe expanded the bench to eight in July, adding three judges considered loyal to the ruling party. The chief justice usually appoints small panels of judges to hear each case.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change has described the court’s expansion as a political ploy designed to turn the court into a government puppet. [end excerpt]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/583991/posts?page=419
Anyone notice how the U.S. courts are packed with socialists who overturn the will of the people, making election outcomes moot?
And they get a really neat flag. Will the hunting industry be upgraded you think?
I felt terrible about the individuals lost on 9/11, living a few miles west of the WTC in a town that lost people, but at the same time felt like I was watching a foreign group attack another foreign country that I happened to be living in.
What do you mean?
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