Posted on 02/28/2003 4:55:22 AM PST by Clive
GOVERNMENT intensified its purge of white commercial farmers from their properties this week after more than 40 farmers in the Karoi-Tengwe area were served with Section 8 notices.Section 8 notices demand the farmer to cease operations and vacate the property within 90 days.
The latest move flies in the face of recent assurances given by President Robert Mugabe to a South African fact-finding mission that farm invasions had ended last August.
Ian Gibson of Kiplingcotes Farm was handed a section 8 notice on February 21 ordering him to quit his farm in 90 days, just when his crop was approaching maturity, according to farmers in the Karoi area.
Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) director, Olivier Hendrik, confirmed to the Zimbabwe Independent that the union had received reports from Karoi.
"We have received the initial reports but we are trying to get details of developments in the area before we can comment on the matter," Hendrik said.
Justice for Agriculture (JAG) chairman David Connolly confirmed the service of the Section 8 notices Karoi- Tengwe farmers.
"As of yesterday night (Wednesday) 16 farmers had actually been served with notices," Connolly said.
"We are informed however that more farmers would be served with the notices in the next few day," he said.
Connolly said government had always misrepresented the situation on the ground to the international community to build up its image.
"The land reform programme is not over as government has been claiming since August last year. Some of our members are still being evicted. Jag will challenge the notices in court," he said.
I wonder if Obasanjo knows.
They give them 90 days to get out? I thought it would be more along the line of 90...or 9...hours
That is unless a gang of "war veterans" (i.e. young thugs) show up in the meantime to forcibly evict the farmer and his employees. The police will not stop this from happening as such acts would be called "political" and not criminal.
Of course, if the farmer resists the thugs, he risks being charged with attempted murder.
Meanwhile, the farmer must keep paying the employees and must pay them severance packages.
When the thugs take over, the employees will find themselves with no jobs or homes, living hard in the bush and with no prospect of ever finding a job again.
And these and other things have happened and are likely to happen consequential on the evictions:
the land will go fallow, fences will be ripped up to use as snare wire, cattle will be killed or turned loose into standing crops or allowed to mingle with wild herds where hoof-and-mouth disease is endemic, irrigation systems will be destroyed, and bore hole pumps burned out. And arson of the veldt is not to be ruled out. The Four Horsemen are riding in Zimbabwe.
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