Posted on 12/05/2001 12:08:25 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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.
Armed ruling party militants have occupied more than 1,700 white-owned farms since March 2000, demanding they be redistributed to landless blacks. The government has listed some 4,500 properties -- about 95 percent of farm land owned by whites -- for nationalization without compensation and last month warned about 800 farmers they had three months to vacate their land and homes.
Monday's court ruling rejected white farmers' assertions that the land seizures were taking place amid violence and a breakdown of law and order in farming districts.
It said the government had met the previous court's order to prove it had restored law and order and a sustainable land reform program in those districts.
Though it was not disputed that clashes took place on farms, "by definition, the concept of rule of law foresees a situation in which behavior prescribed as criminal will occur. The presence of the rule of law does not mean a totally crime free environment," the court said.
Adrian de Bourbon, the lawyer for the Commercial Farmers Union, had asked Chidyausiku and two other new appointees to recuse themselves from the hearing, alleging they had shown open allegiance to the ruling party and its land seizures.
None of the judges stepped down.
Monday's ruling described de Bourbon's request as "unbridled arrogance and insolence."
"This is the first and last time such contempt of this court will go unpunished," it said.
A spokesman for the union said farmers were surprised and disappointed by the decision.
"The ruling does not seem to be based on the strict application of the law or the rules of natural justice, but on a political argument," the spokesman said.
"We are obviously surprised and shocked by this because this is the highest court. But we hope the government will still find the wisdom to be reasonable," he said.
Judges have been under mounting pressure from the government and ruling party militants. Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay was forced out after the government warned him and other judges they would not be protected from ruling party militants, who stormed the Supreme Court last December.
Take your fringe opinions to the usual fringe threads, and leave the rest of us alone.
Here's the latest in Zimbabwe.
Ruling Party Militants March in Zimbabwe [Excerpt] HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - Thousands of ruling party militants marched through Zimbabwe's capital and hurled stones at the opposition headquarters on Monday as the European Union voted to impose sanctions on the violence-wracked African nation.
An opposition-aligned group accused police of beating several of its members in a separate incident ahead of presidential elections next month.
The 10,000 protesters marched Monday to the offices of Britain's diplomatic mission and accused the former colonial power of supporting the opposition to give control of Zimbabwe back to "white oppressors." [End Excerpt]
The news just keeps getting worse and worse .
When all of the " evil " whites are gone, who will they blame the mess on ? What happens when starvation is rampant and there is virtually NO country to rule over ?
Racist blackmail / shakedowns , is a form of terrorism. It's long past time, that people wake up to that.
Continued the witness, "Father Noel was arrested as he came out of the church. He is not a well man, having had a five-way bypass heart operation 14 months ago. … Apparently, Noel Scott is being charged under the new security bill. The 10 ministers and lay preachers from the various churches who went with him have also been arrested, as they refused to leave and knelt down and prayed in the charge office in Bulawayo. No one in detention is being allowed any medication. A vigil is being kept outside the charge office, and a prayer chain has been started in Bulawayo." [End Excerpt]
The Human Rights Forum claimed that militia also raided homes of rural voters and seized identity documents.
"This appears to be a wholesale elimination of eligible voters from the voters roll," the forum said.
They don't regard them as mistakes, because they've always had the best intentions, and "Don't stop thinkin' about tomorrow". Liberalism means never having to say you're sorry.
His comments come two days after the European Union, angered by Zimbabwe's refusal to let its observers freely monitor the March 9-10 vote, ordered the monitors home and imposed sanctions against President Robert Mugabe's government.
The South African observers remained in the country. Their chief, Sam Motsoenyane, said Wednesday that he was "very disturbed" by violence in the Harare township of Epworth on Saturday and in downtown Harare Monday.
In Epworth, five opposition supporters were injured in clashes with ruling party militants as they headed to a rally for Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
On Monday, thousands of ruling party militants stoned the opposition's headquarters in Harare. Motsoenyane said office windows were broken and some people were injured while police stood by.
"It is alleged the police were present and did not act to prevent the incidents. This is a matter of great concern," Motsoenyane said. He promised to look into the charges.
It was the latest violence to mar the run up to elections, in which Mugabe could lose after 22 years in power. There have been several deaths, mainly opposition activists, human rights groups say.
Opposition officials have also charged that ruling party militants have set up "no-go" areas where the opposition cannot campaign. They say that from these areas the militants are launching violent forays into surrounding voter districts. [End Excerpt]
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Washington Times-- Zimbabwe intensifies election blackout -[Excerpt] The intimidation is so great that in an opinion poll made public yesterday, more than half of the 1,693 persons surveyed refused to say how they intended to vote.
Among those who did express an opinion to a University of Zimbabwe research group, Mr. Tsvangirai led Mr. Mugabe by an almost 2-to-1 margin. Police quickly banned the researchers from releasing further details of the poll.
Nor is the government eager for outside election observers to do their work. Last week, observers from the Washington-based National Democratic Institute were turned back at the border town of Livingstone near Victoria Falls. Observers from its Republican counterpart, the International Republican Institute, need not apply either. Swedish diplomat Pierre Schori, head of the European Union's observer delegation, was effectively thrown out of the country Saturday after the government, which had given him only a tourist visa, interpreted his statement that he intended to go ahead with his work as "arrogant" and "political."[End Excerpt]
If it wasn't so horribly sad / disgusting / outrageous, I would say that this is a laughable situation. The South Afrian observor should know , from his own experience, in his own country, all about unfair / nonfree election policies.
Bush signed a proclamation that suspends U.S. entry privileges for Mugabe, his family or senior members of Mugabe's government. He also denied entry to those who received "significant financial benefit" from dealings with Zimbabwean officials who carried out Mugabe's policies.
The suspension is effective immediately, Bush said, and would be terminated at the discretion of Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Diamonds coming from war-torn countries like the DRC, Sierra Leone and Angola should have letters of certification from those governments. Diamond traders must also have permits from governments where gemstones originate.
……….. Subsequent meetings with government officials revealed their involvement in the illegal diamond trade with uncut stones being flown to South Africa where they were cut and fake documentation obtained to facilitate export to Europe.
…………. "Codrington explained that the financial transaction would take place with the aid of the security consulting firm Dickens & Madson," said Marsischky.
"He said they would designate accounts that we would transfer money to and when receipt by electronic transfer or letter of credit was confirmed, the diamonds would be released to us in the designated country such as South Africa. [End Excerpt]
_______THE PRICE: Government propaganda blitz on Mugabe assasination plot --[Excerpt] Dambiti, huddled with friends over a copy of the state-run Herald newspaper during their lunch break, said reports of the plot made him wonder if Tsvangirai was trustworthy.
But his friends said they didn't believe the claims given all-out coverage by the state media since they were first broadcast by an Australian television station a week ago.
Andrew Moyse, head of the independent Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe, said poor Zimbabweans - 70 percent of the population live below the poverty line - mostly have access only to the dominant state controlled media.
"There is proof of the old adage that if you reproduce propaganda long enough people will begin to believe it, irrespective of whether they believed it in the beginning," Moyse said.
The Canadian firm Dickens and Madson said last week that it secretly videotaped a meeting on Dec. 4 in its Montreal offices with Tsvangirai in which he allegedly asked for help to kill or overthrow Mugabe.
The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation has repeatedly run the grainy footage. State newspapers have given prominence to the claims every day.
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo suggested Britain, the former colonial power, and several member nations of the European Union were trying to hide their role in the alleged assassination plot. [End Excerpt]
__________THE STING: [Excerpt] In a statement Thursday, Tsvangirai [Zimbabwe opposition leader] denied Dickens and Madson's claims the opposition approached the firm to assassinate Mugabe.
He said the firm used a former Zimbabwean based in South Africa to present an offer to improve the opposition's image abroad. Four meetings were held with the firm.
"At no stage during the first three meetings was the issue of elimination or assassination ever discussed," Tsvangirai said.
The meetings focused on the need "to bridge the communications gap abroad."
At the fourth meeting, secretly filmed in Montreal, Ben-Menashe and his team "raised the issue of elimination and kept on asking strange questions."
Tsvangirai said he became suspicious of the firm's motives and walked out. The opposition later found out Ben-Menashe had been hired by top Zimbabwean officials "to set up the MDC," he said.
Ben-Menashe said Wednesday that at two meetings in London Tsvangirai raised the subject of assassinating Mugabe and arranging a coup d'etat.
Ben-Menashe said he had an audio tape of one of those meetings, but refused to allow a reporter from The Associated Press to listen to it.
The surveillance tape, aired Wednesday on SBS television's "Dateline" program, showed an aerial view of four men sitting around a boardroom table. The black-and-white picture was grainy and the faces of the men - including the one identified as Tsvangirai - were largely obscured.
"The MDC, represented by the top man who's sitting here right now, commits to ... the coup d'etat or the elimination of the president," Ben-Menashe said on the tape.
During the meeting, the man identified as Tsvangirai expressed concern the military might take over if Mugabe was "eliminated."
Ben-Menashe on Wednesday denied accusations his firm had framed Tsvangirai. [End Excerpt]
=====Who is Ari Ben-Menashe? This is what Media Research Center found out--[Excerpt] BEN-MENASHE. Ari Ben-Menashe appeared three times in the first show, highlighted as an Israeli intelligence officer. PBS reported that "Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe says he was one of half a dozen Israelis sent to Paris at Casey's request to help coordinate arms deliveries" and "Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe claimed that he saw intelligence reports about Casey's trip to Madrid." After Newsweek and The New Republic published their exposés of the sources pushing the October Surprise story, including the fact that Ben-Menashe's wife called him a liar, Frontline's second program admitted: "His credibility with reporters collapsed because some of his assertions proved implausible, particularly his claim about George Bush."
THE HASHEMIS. While Frontline disavowed Brenneke and Ben-Menashe, the producers stood by their belief in the Hashemi brothers, Jamshid and Cyrus, a pair of Iranian arms dealers. This despite the New Republic exposé, which declared Jamshid Hashemi had "even worse credibility problems" than Brenneke and Ben-Menashe; and the Village Voice placed Cyrus as flying from Paris instead of to Paris on August 14, when the meetings supposedly took place. [End Excerpt]
Tsvangirai video evidence 'doctored'--[Excerpt] THE surveillance video footage which purportedly shows Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai plotting to assassinate President Robert Mugabe has been extensively "doctored", evidence made available to the Zimbabwe Independent this week shows.
Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ) director Andrew Moyse said the video footage shown last week by Australia's Special Services Broadcasting (SBS) station was tampered with.
Moyse said a common cut-and-paste editing method was used.
"Notably, what Tsvangirai was heard to say did not match the titles on the screen," he said……………………….. Davis said Dickens & Madson's chief executive Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli intelligence operative who has been involved in a series of questionable dealings, opened the meeting. [End Excerpt]
_________THE PURPOSE: "The opposition said the story was part of an ongoing government smear campaign intended to distract people from the important issues of joblessness, AIDS and food shortages.
The Zimbabwean government did not immediately comment on the accusation. Under security laws passed last month acts of "insurgency, banditry, sabotage or terrorism" carry a penalty of life imprisonment.…" AP LINK
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