Zimbabwe court rules seizing of white-owned land legal

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.

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.

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.

Soccer-mad Gaddafi sees an opening*** For years he has been left out in the cold, the leader of a pariah state shunned by the international community. But now Muammar Gaddafi seems intent on speeding up his rehabilitation, not only through the slow diplomatic channels but also via soccer. After buying a share in the Italian giant, Juventus, earlier this year the Libyan leader is about to take over the financially struggling Greek first division team, PAOK Salonika.

Libyan officials say Colonel Gaddafi's love of soccer - his son Al-Saadi is an international who once dreamt of playing for Manchester United - is the main reason for ploughing money into the game. But they admit a desire to attract good publicity, which might help Libya win back its reputation, is also important. A Libyan official said on Thursday: "Libya wants to play her part in the international arena and show that she's not like people think about terrorism and all that."***

Wary and defiant, a Zimbabwe farmer hunkers down - "what are they going to do, shoot me?" *** Mugabe likes to refer to Zimbabwe's white farmers as ''neocolonialists'' and ''British stooges.'' Over a dinner of fish and chips in his chilly dining room, Shand said he is a ''Zimbabwean, an African, first and foremost.'' His mother's family came from England, his father's from South Africa. Lyn, his wife, goes back further: Three generations of family are buried in their front garden. The couple once visited Europe on a three-month holiday; he hasn't been back since. ''It's the last place in the world I would want to live,'' he said.

After leaving school, Shand served in the Police Anti-Terrorist Unit, to fight Mugabe's guerrilla movement. After Zimbabwe's independence in 1980, many whites in Rhodesia, as the country was then known, moved to South Africa, fearing black rule. But Shand stayed because he believed Mugabe's promises of reconciliation. Shand said he did not oppose land redistribution to help landless blacks. ''The majority of white farmers are in favor of land reform, but we want it done in a systematic manner,'' he said. ''Not like this.''

Like many white farmers, Shand has invested his hopes in a recent High Court ruling forbidding the state from seizing property if the banks carrying mortgages on the property had not been informed of the evictions. But Mugabe has ignored unfavorable judgments in the past, and in a fiery speech Monday he warned his government would ''brook no impediment and suffer no avoidable delays.''***

Mugabe's thuggery has barely roused America's black elite - Only madness is taking root in Zimbabwe*** ***Among Africa's frequent man-made catastrophes, this is one of the worst. Just a few years ago, Zimbabwe not only fed itself but also sold foodstuffs to other countries, bringing vital foreign currency to its treasury. But a few years of blatant misrule -- coupled with a severe drought -- have brought the nation to the brink of disaster.

If a racist white dictator were creating conditions that starved millions of black Africans, the Congressional Black Caucus would have demanded severe sanctions, and a long line of African-American celebrities would be lining up to picket the nation's embassy, taking turns getting arrested and handcuffed for the TV cameras. But Mugabe's thuggery has barely roused America's black elite.***

White skin makes Mugabe shudder. Shameful silence in response to ethnic cleansing in Zimbabwe***He will go on shuddering until he has rid Zimbabwe of its white population. But you won't hear Africa's leaders speak up for a threatened minority, nor will the African secretary-general of the UN, Kofi Annan, rally the international community to support the beleaguered farmers of Matabeleland. And I would bet anything you like that we won't hear any of our Western leaders use the phrase 'ethnic cleansing'. That would create an obligation to intervene to protect the vulnerable, and, for all the fine rhetoric, this simply will not happen. The whites of Zimbabwe have been abandoned.

Some will try to hang on and hope that Mugabe dies of old age or is eventually overthrown; but most will eventually be driven out, the victims of Robert Mugabe's racism and our indifference. As Naomi Raaff said, it's over.***

Zimbabwe -- Mugabe pays off Libya with an embassy*** Diplomatic sources claim that the Zimbabwean assets taken by Libya include a controlling interest in the Jewel Bank, formerly the Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe, and Rainbow Tourist Group, the state travel company. Colonel Gaddafi has been given a controlling share in the oil pipeline between Zimbabwe and the Mozambique port of Beira. He also has a significant shareholding in Zimbabwe's state-owned energy company Noczim and top hotels. President Mugabe is understood to have facilitated foreign travel for 10,000 Libyans by giving them Zimbabwean passports. Sources inside Zimbabwe said that more than 1,500 Libyans had been given homes, work permits and jobs in Zimbabwe.***

Africa's most sinister tyrant***Of all the world's hard luck countries, few have had the misfortune of Zimbabwe, whose running start for prosperity and harmony was sabotaged by its elected leader, Robert Mugabe. The fact that Mugabe is a Marxist is irrelevant. His despotism is erratic, perverted, brutal and may be complicated by syphilis, as some critics insist. Whatever, he seems bent on destroying his country.

..... Saddest of all is the political opposition in Zimbabwe, headed by Morgan Tsvangiria's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) that is, arguably, the most courageous, balanced and hopeful of all Africa's political movements. Rigged elections denied the MDC power, yet Tsvangiria struggles on - inexplicably cheerful, optimistic, fearless and resolute, despite craven abandonment by the likes of Chretien and the European Union. Chretien has foolishly made Africa a personal cause and urged western countries to invest and donate billions that will inevitably be wasted.

The made-in-Africa program of NEPAD (New Partnership for African Development) appeals to the kind of academics that Canada's foreign affairs minister, Bill Graham, finds irresistible. NEPAD is aimed at enticing foreign investment and aid by ensuring that Africa can produce good and democratic governments, and live by the rule of law. It's all just rhetoric. African leaders won't criticize Mugabe and fear supporting the MDC, violating precisely what NEPAD has promised.***

'Pol Pot' tactics leave half of Zimbabweans to starve***. "There is only food available for half the country of 13 million people," an economist in Harare said. "Robert Mugabe is employing the tactics of Pol Pot. He plans to get rid of the dissenting half of the population by starving them to death." A village close to Nkayi, in the Midlands region of Zimbabwe, made the mistake of voting for the opposition in last February's elections. Now its people are being punished. No food trucks arrive here and there are only 44lb of maize left for 200 people until the next harvest in June. Sithembiso Sekai sits in a forlorn heap outside her house, watching her painfully thin eldest daughter crack muphura, a foul-tasting wild nut, to feed to the other four children. The baby at her breast lies asleep, exhausted by the effort of sucking to no avail.***

'I thought my boss was a devil. Not now, He was my saviour. '*** Charles Mushambati had always regarded Thom Martin as being among those "devil" Zimbabwean white farmers who grossly underpaid their workers and kept them in squalor. With hindsight, he now believes he was wrong. More than 60 white farmers had been arrested around Zimbabwe by yesterday as President Robert Mugabe cracked down on 1,800 farmers who were refusing to leave their land. His confiscation policy is supposedly aimed at helping people such as Mr Mushambati, but the 59-year-old labourer, like most of the 80,000 farm workers who have found themselves unemployed and homeless after their bosses went out of business, has lost his illusions.

Mr Mushambati had often quarrelled with Mr Martin over his wages, and was elated when he attended a rally before the 2000 parliamentary elections at which Mr Mugabe promised "land to my people". The labourer applied for a piece of land, but officials asked him for a Zanu-PF card, demonstrating membership of Mr Mugabe's ruling party, to attach to the application. He didn't have one. "They made it clear that no one would get land without a party card," he said. Mr Mushambati returned to work for Mr Martin, who paid him 4,000 Zimbabwe dollars (£50) a month. His wife also worked for the white farmer and they received free produce from Mr Martin, and sent their children to a school he built for his employees. "I used to think the boss was a devil, but with hindsight he was not. He was my saviour," said Mr Mushambati.

This is the future now facing Mr Mushambati - a plight often forgotten in the international attention devoted to the white farmers. Mr Martin told his workers last week he had given up the fight for his land and was emigrating to New Zealand. Mr Mushambati asked his employer to take him too. "Unfortunately, the boss said he will not own a farm any more. He is going to work in a hotel in New Zealand," said his employee of 20 years. He broke down. "I am finished. I have no future."***

U.S. seeks new regime in Zimbabwe***The farm disruptions have deeply reduced agricultural output that typically feeds not only Zimbabwe but also its neighbors. Some white farmers have refused to leave their farms and were arrested last week. "Those farms are all shut down now," Mr. Kansteiner said. "Either they've been confiscated or people are being arrested now. It is madness to arrest commercial farmers in the middle of a drought when they could grow food to save people from starvation," he said. Mr. Kansteiner said the food crisis is also caused in part by the Mugabe government's decision to fix grain prices so low that no private merchants will import or market food.

Reservoirs in Zimbabwe are full and capable of irrigating food crops, he said. "The problem is that Mugabe's policies are confiscating all the commercial farms." A U.S. official also accused the Mugabe government of favoring members of its ruling party, known as ZANU-PF, when distributing food. Despite U.S. differences with Mr. Mugabe, "food aid will not be used for political or economic purposes or as an instrument of diplomacy in an emergency," said Andrew Natsios, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Administration officials said the United States would increase its emergency food contributions to the region to $230 million, which will be delivered to needy people regardless of the political situation in any country.***

Zimbabwe -- Beware the U-turn***……….The key to understanding what Mugabe and his Zanu PF party are up to - for blacks as well as whites - is the word "leases." The ruling party moguls, security force chiefs and 54,000 others getting so-called "model 2" holdings, capable of being farmed on an individual basis, will not be granted the freehold their 5,000 white predecessors had (The first 2,900 seizure and eviction orders fell due on August 9 and scores of whites were detained over the past weekend for defying them, although their constitutional validity is heavily in doubt). At the first sign of political disloyalty the "new farmers", as Mugabe calls them, will be liable to instant eviction.

"Owning land for Britain" means supporting civil society, or talking to human rights groups critical of Zanu PF, or voting for an opposition party. Mugabe showered praise on his ruling party youth militia, now commonly known here as the "Green Bombers". Their fraudulent claims to be ex- guerrillas from the 1972-80 bush war in Rhodesia were exposed in the early days of farm invasions, after the February 2000 constitutional referendum. It was the crushing defeat of Zanu PF in that referendum that caused Mugabe to unleash country-wide violence under cover of agitation for land reform in order to ensure a semblance of victory in the June 2000 parliamentary elections and the March 2002 presidential poll.

This campaign of terror Mugabe calls the "Third Chimurenga" or civil war. "The Third Chimurenga has yielded a New War Veteran: these young men and women who slugged it out on the farms in support of their elder veterans...We are not apologetic about our national youth service programme...it is mandatory, it is national, it links to the politics and defence of our country…It seeks to and will build a new national cadre who is self respecting, adequate, assertive and patriotic and thus does not apologise for being black," he said. Mugabe sees his enemy as "White-ism" - the route `"through which the forces of imperialism and neo-colonialism enter."

Mugabe either does not know that it is impossible to run commercially viable farms on the lord-and-vassal system he is imposing, or feels that the economic costs are more than offset by the blessings of "political stability" (i.e. he gets to stay in power until he can hand over to his children). Commercial agriculture here only prospered by being keenly responsive to world market trends. In the 20 years since the state monopoly, the Minerals Marketing Corporation, was created, millions have been lost through the tardiness of bureaucrats in responding to potential orders - they are paid for loyalty, not for initiative.

Doris Lessing, a founder member of Rhodesia's long defunct Communist party, concedes that her father's Kermanshah Farm at Banket (one of the 2,900 now being seized, although her family sold up 60 years ago) was hopelessly sub-economic at 400 hectares - and those were the days of ox-ploughing. To maintain competitive edge in an age of mechanisation, farmers need security of tenure, title deeds that can be lodged with financial institutions against loans.

Mugabe cheated his way to power and he must go, says US***America has issued its strongest attack yet on President Mugabe of Zimbabwe, describing him as an illegitimate leader who won power by fraud and saying it would encourage his people to "correct that situation". Stopping just short of calling for a change of regime, Walter Kansteiner, the US government's Africa policy chief, said America does "not see President Mugabe as the democratically legitimate leader of the country".

Mr Kansteiner said Washington was working with countries in Africa and Europe to "encourage the body politic of Zimbabwe" to "correct that situation and start providing an environment that would lead to a free and fair election". US support being offered to Zimbabwean aid organisations and human rights groups is reminiscent of the West's successful move to undermine Slobodan Milosevic by providing Serbian pro-democracy activists with money, computers and other aid.***

[Gadaafi LINKS]

Mugabe poisons the wells (SPOT ON, MR. PRESIDENT)***This outburst of anger from Washington is hardly surprising. President Bush has an agenda for Africa which Mugabe's conduct is making ever harder to implement. The only nations that can deal effectively with someone such as Mugabe are African nations. For deep-seated reasons they are reluctant to condemn him.

South Africa's government, in particular, seems unwilling to lift a finger to check Mugabe's inhuman conduct against his own people. Observing this, much of the world is running out of sympathy for the continent. That great emotional stream that poured help into Africa at the time of the Ethiopian famine in 1984-85 has dried up. Some of the charities that serve Africa are finding it hard to attract public sympathy. In short, Mugabe is poisoning the wells of goodwill. He has not only ruined his own country but is on the way to turning much of the world against Africa. America shows us she has a firmer grasp of that sad truth than we do.***

Commonwealth gears up to expel Zimbabwe***The 15-nation European Union, the US, Canada, Switzerland and New Zealand have already imposed targeted sanctions against Mugabe and 72 of his officials over the poll which they have blasted as deeply flawed. In a sign of growing impatience by the international community over Harare's conduct, US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter Kansteiner this week said Washington did not recognise Mugabe's presidency and wanted him isolated further. He specifically mentioned Africa's powerhouse South Africa, Mozambique and Botswana as countries he said Washington was working with to isolate Mugabe, in power for the past 22 years.

Pacific Commonwealth nations also ratcheted up the pressure for Zimbabwe's expulsion from the group, demanding at the weekend that the club must act on Zimbabwe as it did on Fiji, which it suspended and slapped with trade sanctions after a coup in May 2000. The 11 Pacific states made the call during their annual Pacific Island Forum held in Fiji.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who heads the Commonwealth troika on Zimbabwe which earlier this year suspended Harare from meetings of the Commonwealth's councils, boldly endorsed the position of the Pacific nations in a move which others said could be a signal of the way the committee would act on Zimbabwe. "The rule book was thrown at Fiji. There is no reason why other countries should be treated more sparingly in a situation like this than Fiji was treated," Howard told journalists after the Pacific nations' meeting.

South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki and Nigerian leader Olusegun Obasanjo are the other members of the Commonwealth special committee on Zimbabwe. Howard said: "The countries gathered here comprise one fifth of the membership of the Commonwealth so this is no small expression of Commonwealth opinion (on Zimbabwe).***

Zimbabwe --Mugabe dissolves cabinet in shock move***Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe dissolved his cabinet today in a surprise move that official sources said was linked to a government drive to seize white-owned farms. Mugabe, who has vowed to press ahead with the land seizures despite resistance from farmers and growing criticism abroad, will announce a new cabinet on Monday, a government statement said……… "The bottom line is that government policy revolves around Mugabe, and whatever changes we are going to see in personnel will not mean a change in policy," he said. "I think we might see a change in style in some respects but not the substance, and that includes on policies like land," Madhuku added. ***

Electronic Telegraph Mugabe men 'use rape as revenge' [Full Text] Hundreds of girls as young as 12 are being raped or forcibly kept as concubines in rural Zimbabwe by President Robert Mugabe's youth militia as part of a campaign that human-rights lawyers have branded "systematic political cleansing" of the population.

A Rape victim in Mutare

"They are raping on a massive scale," said Frances Lovemore, a counsellor at the Harare-based Amani Trust which monitors torture. "Girls as young as 12 or 13 are being systematically taken and used and abused because of their families' political views."

The organisation is compiling video evidence that it hopes to use to help to bring Mr Mugabe to trial at the international court of human rights. An investigation by The Telegraph found that rape camps had been set up for youth militia and riot police in rural areas.

Victims living in hiding related how they had been gang-raped by police and self-styled war veterans, and had their genitals burnt with iron rods. They said that they had been abused in revenge for their parents not supporting Mr Mugabe, 78, in the presidential poll in March.

Other opponents of the government were badly beaten. As a final indignity, in a land where half the population is on the verge of starvation, victims claimed that militia members often urinated on the family food.

A former militia member recounted how he and others were instructed to attack wives and daughters of opposition sympathisers.

Human rights activists believe that this is part of a programme to drive out, kill or terrify into submission all those who oppose the president. Didymus Mutasa, the of Mr Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF, has even spoken of halving the population to six million.

Details of the violence have emerged as world attention focuses on Mr Mugabe's campaign to evict white farmers while famine threatens.

Critics say the land reform programme is a cover for his war on opposition. "This isn't about race or land, it's about a political tyrant who wants to kill, break down and cripple all opposition," said Roy Bennett, a farmer who is an MP in Manicaland, eastern Zimbabwe, for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. [End]

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