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.

Parallels between Apartheid SA & USA today*** I grew up in Rhodesia (which later became "The Zimbabwe Ruins"), and that gives me a perspective on life which is pretty alien to people in the Western world. The Rhodesia of the 1970's was very similar to Britain in 1941 at the height of the Battle of Britain. I have heard people remark that Rhodesians were "more British than the British", and I can vouch for that. I was there, and it was an experience which will remain with me all my life. Indeed, looking back, I am glad I was there.

Let me try to describe what Rhodesians then were like. Rhodesia was declared by the stupid UN (dominated by communists and assorted trash) to be "a threat to world peace". How 250,000 white people living in Africa could be a "threat to world peace" I do not know. I suspect it was just communist-speak meaning that if the Western world had the balls to stand by us, that the entire Soviet Bloc would throw in their lot against us. We were under comprehensive world sanctions meaning we could not buy anything or sell anything to anyone. We could not buy oil, weapons, cars - nothing. We could not sell our beef (Rhodesia had one of the finest beef herds back then - a far cry from the Zimbabwe Ruins of today). Rhodesia was under constant attack and pressure from everywhere.

The thing I remember the most about Rhodesia, and cherish the most, was the UNITY of the people. We whites were absolutely determined to resist the British handover to Marxists like Mugabe and Nkomo. We kept saying we would hand over power to "responsible government" - which meant: NO MARXISTS and NO SOCIALISTS! That was really the main thing we wanted. In the end, we did not get even that - we got our worst nightmare - Robert Mugabe.***

Mugabe made Zimbabwe a pariah state*** Mr Straw said in an article in the Observer that Mugabe's policies were leading his country to ruin. "In the name of his 'land reform' policies, Mugabe is reducing his people to starvation. "A fraudulent election earlier this year was characterised by murder and intimidation. His continuing use of state-organised violence since then underlines his determination to hold on to power at all costs." Mr Straw said that Zimbabwe was "a self-made pariah, not a colonial victim" and that the suffering of the country's black population was particularly shocking. "With countries in the region, the Commonwealth, the EU and the US, we will review the impact of the current sanctions regime." But he ruled out economic sanctions. "Mugabe's policies have already imposed too much economic hardship."

Iain Duncan Smith, the Tory leader, renewed his call in the Mail on Sunday yesterday for Mr Blair to make Zimbabwe the "make or break" issue at the summit. Mr Duncan Smith served in Zimbabwe as a soldier when it was still called Rhodesia and the British Army was keeping the peace in the run-up to independence. The experience, and particularly the realisation that political decisions could transform people's lives in very practical ways, persuaded him to become a politician. "It is easy to forget now just how much that infant nation had going for it. It was the bread basket of Southern Africa," Mr Duncan Smith said.***

Sydney Morning Herald - Earth summit: Protesters hit out at 'plot' against poor***The executive director of Friends of the Earth, Charles Secrett, said the group had obtained a leaked paper that "proves that the US and EU will sacrifice the environment and poor countries' needs, all for their own selfish free-trade agenda". The paper calls for wealthy countries to scrap quotas and import duty on goods that originate in the world's least-developed countries.

But Mr Secrett said there were no binding rules to control what he called "predatory corporations" from doing environmental damage in developing countries. "It is all about voluntary business action and market expansion," he said.

The summit is billed by the United Nations as the biggest conference in history, with up to 100 heads of state and 60,000 delegates expected to attend. But with the summit due to officially start this morning, only 20,000 delegates have registered so far.

Non-government organisations and protest groups have called on South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki to stand up to the US and EU to safeguard the environment of developing countries. But he is more likely to be watching reaction to a demonstration outside the conference today by black Zimbabweans living in South Africa. They are demanding that Pretoria impose sanctions against the Government of President Robert Mugabe.

Although there are no official figures, between 1 and 2 million economic refugees from Zimbabwe are estimated to live and work in South Africa. Their presence is putting pressure on Pretoria, with South African workers claiming the immigrants are taking their jobs. Britain's Foreign Minister, Jack Straw, yesterday said Mr Mugabe's land reform policies were reducing his people to starvation. But Mr Straw, writing in The Observer newspaper, said criticism of Mr Mugabe should not dominate the summit.

Britain's Conservative opposition has called on the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who is due to address the summit an hour before Mr Mugabe, to boycott the Zimbabwean leader's speech. Facing international criticism for expelling white farmers from their land, Mr Mugabe retained his most loyal ministers in a surprise cabinet reshuffle on Friday, the official Sunday Mail newspaper said. It said the ministers retained included the Agriculture Minister, Joseph Made, who is in charge of the land seizure program, the Justice Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, and the Information Minister, Jonathan Moyo.***

SAS recce to help whites flee Mugabe ***Up to 300 men from 1 Bn, the Parachute Regiment, will spend three months carrying out trials jumping from the new C130J Hercules transport aircraft. They will be accompanied by an RAF C17 Globemaster transport aircraft, a VC10 military airliner and two C130J aircraft. Their exercises will be carried out with the South African National Defence Force (SANDF).

The MoD said the exercise was "absolutely not" connected to the situation in Zimbabwe. "This is a long-planned air concentration exercise, the first of a series of trials that will be taking place twice a year," a spokesman said. The Foreign Office last night played down any connection between the dispatch of the troops and the crisis in Zimbabwe. "We keep contingency plans up to date for most parts of the world, but we are not moving to implement any such plans for Zimbabwe," said a spokesman. "A large-scale military operation does not fit in with what we estimate is required. If it were needed, there are contingency plans and they could be implemented in a short time."

But defence officials said the paratroopers were part of the contingency plans and would be ideally placed if troops were needed for a defensive escort for any evacuation. "There is a lack of willingness by UK Plc to get involved because any intervention will be bloody and if we are forced to go in, it will not be easy," said one official. "Zimbabwe is a well-armed country. "But if the war veterans start to evict farmers and there is mass slaughter of UK nationals we will be forced to intervene." Military planners at Northwood were putting the final touches to an evacuation operation which could require British troops to go in for a very brief period "possibly just 24 hours", the officials said. "The obvious evacuation route is by road, but they could easily block this and we must therefore plan for an air intervention as we did in Sierra Leone two years ago."

The paratroopers would support the SAS in providing a defensive ring for an operation known as a rapid air landing, in which RAF transports would fly into Harare airport to take out the Britons. They would be escorted by Tornado ground attack aircraft and in the second phase of the evacuation the Britons would be flown out in a so-called tactical air land operation.***

Independent broadcast offices destroyed in bomb attack, raids and arrests in Zimbabwe *** HARARE, Zimbabwe - A bomb attack gutted the offices of an independent broadcaster, heightening tensions in Zimbabwe on Thursday as authorities raided a human rights group and a camp for displaced farm workers being set up by a private charity. The bombing ignited a fire at the Harare offices of a Netherlands-based broadcaster, leaving the building a charred shell. Zimbabwe's independent media has been subjected to a series of attacks during more than two years of political unrest in Zimbabwe, which has been widely blamed on the ruling party.

Computers, recording and editing equipment, files and furniture were destroyed at the Voice of the People offices in Harare's Milton Park suburb. Most of the roof of the converted suburban home collapsed. No one was in the building at the time of the attack around 1:00 a.m. (2300 GMT) and there were no injuries. The independent human rights group Amani Trust, meanwhile, said police raided its office in downtown Harare later Thursday, detaining one official for questioning. The trust, a research and care group for the victims of political violence and torture, said Dr. Frances Lovemore, a medical specialist in violence trauma, was taken by police for questioning at the main Harare police station.

Central Intelligence Organization agents took away documents compiled by the trust on political violence that has left nearly 200 people dead in the past two years, most of them opposition supporters. State television, in its nightly news, said the government dismissed reports, evidently attributed to Lovemore, that girls and women were being sexually abused by ruling party militants and members of the state National Youth Service in rural camps. ***

Jeers for Johannesburg - A summit that cheers Mugabe isn't about helping the poor***Journalists also tended to tiptoe around the issue of Mr. Mugabe and similar leaders in other developing countries. Kaizer Nyatsumba of Britain's Independent was a notable exception when he wrote that "Mr. Mugabe, it seems, is no longer content with merely wrecking his own country, which now has to beg for food in order to survive. Instead, he wants to take all of Africa along with him, with his friend and ally, Sam Nujoma of Namibia, marching right behind him. For Western sceptics who heard the two men lashing at Tony Blair in Johannesburg on Monday, their tirade is sufficient proof that Africa is truly irredeemable."***

NOW KHADAFY CLOSING IN ON NUKE CAPABILITY: SHARON [Full Text] JERUSALEM - LIBYA'S Colonel Moammar Khadafy has been secretly developing nuclear-weapons capability and may acquire it before Iraq. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon disclosed this less-than-heartwarming news in interviews before last week's Rosh Hashanah holiday weekend. But he added, "Israel may be the best-prepared country in the world against the danger of a chemical or biological offensive." This was his message to Israeli citizens, who are already discussing on a daily basis the possibility that Saddam Hussein may launch warheads containing smallpox or anthrax at them as a last resort once the Bush administration moves to dethrone him.

But the threat of Libya is not well known - in part because Khadafy has tried hard to clean up his act. After being forced, by U.S.-led sanctions, to indirectly admit complicity in the Lockerbie airliner sabotage, the dictator in Tripoli denounced terrorism. He tried to hire a Washington lawyer to get Libya removed from the U.S. list of terror-sponsoring nations. He nearly succeeded - since the State Department during the Clinton administration conveyed discreet messages to then-Israeli-prime-minister Ehud Barak's government that Khadafy had "endorsed Yasser Arafat's peace process."

Khadafy tried so hard to convince the world he had stepped away from the axis of evil, 10 years ago, a Libyan chemical-weapons plant, operating with the illegal help of German firms and scientists, was shown blazing in flames. Intelligence reports indicated, however, that Khadafy removed the weapons and equipment before staging the fire. But in the last month, Western intelligence agencies gained details of Khadafy's latest adventure - his bid to join the Nuclear Club. At first, intelligence analysts suspected that Egypt was helping him in this project. But now it is certain that Iraqi scientists and engineers, who developed their expertise in the last 25 years under Khadafy, are leading the underground Libyan effort.

Sharon said a secret weapons effort "is taking place in Iraq, and a similar process is going on in Libya - which probably will turn out to be the first Arab state with weapons of mass destruction." Other countries are helping Khadafy, but the extent of the assistance is not clear, Sharon said. "It may be that there is assistance from Pakistan, as Iran had [in nuclear weapons development]," the prime minister warned. "But for sure, there is assistance from North Korea." [End]

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Many Gadaafy LINKS at this post.

Grace and Robert - The Farming Mugabes - Or, How to race bait for self enrichment and political power.

Land Grab: Zimbabwe's Farm Policy Hits Whites and Blacks, But Blacks Suffer the Worst***A supporter of Zimbabwe's opposition MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) party, Mugagwa says he came to Harare for medical treatment after being arrested and tortured by local policemen. "It happened on July 14, when the police came to my house to fetch me because I supported the MDC," Mugagwa told ABCNEWS.com in a phone interview. "While we were on the way to the police station, they produced a pistol and told me to get out and fall on the ground and started to beat my buttocks and legs and feet with their batons and asked me for the names of MDC people."

Along with a group of other MDC supporters, Mugagwa says he was taken to the Buhera police station, where they were severely beaten over a period of three days. The police accused the men of torching a local official's hut, a charge the men deny and insist is politically trumped up. A court hearing is scheduled for October. But as reports of arrests and torture incidents in the area mounted, Mugagwa says he was forced to flee to Harare, where he is staying in a safe house run by the Amani Trust, a Zimbabwean-based aid agency. For the moment, he's safe. But his troubles are far from over. More than a month after his imprisonment, Mugagwa says he is unable to work or even sit since his buttocks and genitals are sore from the baton beatings he received.***

GADDAFI-- DRIVE ALL WHITES FROM AFRICA --*** Tunis - Libya's leader, Muammar Gaddafi, has urged Africans to drive white people out of the continent and make them pay compensation for their exploitation of it. "The white colonialists have no place in Africa and their presence is unlawful," said Gaddafi on Sunday, addressing a gathering of African women activists in Tripoli. Gaddafi, whose remarks were reported by the official Libyan news agency Jana monitored in Tunis, also urged Africans to rid themselves of the white person's cultural legacy, including language. ***

Mugabe would lose in any free and fair poll - Zimbabwe Arrests White Opposition Leader *** The MDC says 700 of its candidates have been barred from registering or intimidated from running in the polls. On Sunday it said it had received reports from various parts of the country showing the ruling ZANU-PF had stepped up violence to prevent Zimbabweans from voting freely. "Several MDC candidates and their agents have been blocked from entering the polling stations while some have been assaulted and a few have been reported missing," the MDC said.

Police and electoral officials said they had not received any reports of intimidation and Mugabe's ZANU-PF party dismissed the charges as "a pack of the usual lies." "The truth is that the MDC is frustrated at its failure to win the support of a majority of the people of this country," a ZANU-PF spokesman said. The allegations were also dismissed by Thomas Bvuma, a spokesman for the Electoral Supervisory Commission, who told Zimbabwe state radio the elections were going smoothly and the authorities had not received any complaints.

The MDC, which accuses Mugabe of stealing victory in a presidential election in March, says Mugabe has resorted to political violence in the council elections because he knows he would lose any free and fair poll. ***

Zimbabwe's Writers Explore Despair and Violence Under Black Rule*** "It has been a silenced subject," she said. "There has been an absolute fear of even talking about it. For two years I did not write it. But it was not possible for me to have that self-censorship. "I wanted to say, This is how it was. Just that. These destructive people were created, and they roamed the land. I cannot pretend to have been unaware of the relevance now. We weren't past this violence; we have remained in that." By confronting the troubles of the past and acknowledging their continuing relevance, Ms. Vera is following one of Zimbabwe's most striking literary trends.

Black writers here have written eloquently about black suffering under the white government and the jubilation that followed Mr. Mugabe's election in 1980. But since the late 1980's many writers who were in their 20's when white rule ended have focused on the damage and disillusionment experienced by blacks during and immediately after the struggle for self-determination. In "Shadows," Chenjerai Hove, 46, describes how some black guerrillas commandeered homes from their supporters and abandoned the children they fathered in rural villages. In "Harvest of Thorns," Shimmer Chinodya, who is also in his mid-40's, depicts the brutal public killings of blacks who were viewed as collaborators with the white government. In her collection of poems, "On the Road Again," Freedom Nyamubaya, a poet and a former guerrilla, describes how many female fighters, including herself, were raped by their commanders.***

Zimbabwe: State lawyers fight citizenship rights of dead statesman's daughter *** Chidyausiku criticized de Bourbon for not presenting the court with New Zealand statutes on citizenship. However, de Bourbon protested that it was up to the government to prove Todd held New Zealand citizenship. He said it was not up to her to renounce a theoretical right she has never attempted to exert. The court said it would rule later in the week on a government request for postponement to allow time to get copies of New Zealand statutes. Zimbabwe has been racked by political unrest and economic collapse since Mugabe lost a constitutional referendum in February 2000. His claims to victory in later parliamentary and presidential elections have been widely challenged.

Garfield Todd, who died last week at 94, campaigned for black advancement in Zimbabwe when it was a British colony known as Southern Rhodesia. Although the government wants to declare him a national hero, the registrar stripped him of his citizenship and right to vote before the presidential elections last March because he was not born in Zimbabwe. Judith Todd said Friday declaring her father a hero would be "inappropriate" and an "embarrassment" because he abhorred the ruling Zanu-PF party's "suppression of democracy, erosion of civil liberties, assassination of opposition officials and supporters, arrests, torture, and the climate of fear spread throughout the country." ***

End of War Intensifies Plunder of Congo Riches *** Zimbabwe military and some government officials have contended their contracts are legal payment for troops, which propped up the Kinshasa government. The report says a network of Congolese and Zimbabwean political military and commercial interests, including top government officials in both countries, has transferred ownership of at least $5 billion in assets from the state mining sector to private companies "with no compensation or benefit for the state treasury." "The diversion of funds from state companies and public coffers, by fraud or under the pretext of war efforts has contributed to eliminating funds available for public services," the report said. ***

MATTHEW PARRIS: The tribal catastrophe that awaits Zimbabwe*** My evidence is anecdotal, sketchy and based on unsourced information, but a boyhood spent there lends me confidence to back my hunch. My fears are sharpened by those in Zimbabwe to whom I have been speaking this week.

The majority Mashona tribe who occupy the richer, northern part of the country centred on Harare, may soon be urged by their leader, Robert Mugabe, and his Zanu (Patriotic Front) governing party into a genocidal bid to take from the southern Matabele ("take back", he would say) the lands which the Mashona believe were stolen from them more than a hundred years ago. The situation has parallels with Kosovo. The plan would be to drive the Matabele, by terror and by massacre, over the southern borders of Zimbabwe whence (in some Mashona minds) they came.***

Where's Jimmy or Jesse? Opposition cites harassment, intimidation in race for parliament seat*** In the June 2000 parliamentary elections, Mugabe faced his most serious challenge since coming to power in 1980. The opposition won 57 seats to the ruling party's 62 in the race. Mugabe had controlled all but three seats in the previous legislature. The Movement for Democratic Change has since lost one seat after the death of another of its lawmakers.

Ruling party officials say victory in Insiza and a third seat left vacant by the death Tuesday in a jail cell of an opposition lawmaker, is an important step towards reducing the opposition's power in the 150-seat parliament. Mugabe appoints 30 lawmakers and needs a two-thirds majority vote to change the nation's constitution. The opposition has blocked proposed constitutional changes. If the ruling party wins the two by-elections it will be four seats short of carrying a two-thirds vote.***

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