Zimbabwe arrests two white farmers

Zimbabwe arrests two white farmers

WHITE commercial farmers were driven out of their farms in a violent land grab

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By Lebo Nkatazo

ZIMBABWEAN police have arrested two white farmers for defying eviction notices.

The government issued eviction notices with varying dates of vacating their expropriated properties starting this month right through to September 30.

Harare lawyer David Drury said two farmers Neville Stidoof and Hermanus Grove of Karoi and Kwekwe respectively were arrested last week for allegedly defying the notices.

The lawyer said the Kwekwe farmer has been released on bail by the Bulawayo High Court.

Drury said the Kwekwe farmer was “arrested for continuing to irrigate his wheat crop.”

It could not be immediately established whether Grove was still detained or had been released on bail.

Last month, Drury said they do not know of any farmer who has been left out of the current evictions apart from former Health Minister and now health policy advisor to President Robert Mugabe, Dr Timothy Stamps.

"We don't know anyone who has been left out of the equation, apart from Dr (Timothy) Stamps," he said.

The latest eviction notices, signed by the Didymus Mutasa, the Minister of Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement, say the farmers should have left the properties by February 4, but the government extended the period to enable them to wound up operations.

The eviction notices say those who fail to leave their farmers would be jailed in terms of the Gazetted Land (Consequential Provisions) Act.

"Your attention is drawn to the provisions of the Gazetted Land
(Consequential Provisions) Act whose effective date is 20 December 2006," reads part of the notice.

The law gave the farmers 45 days from the date it became effective to vacate their properties. That day was February 4.

"In view of the above you should have vacated on the 4th of February 2007 following an assessment of operations on the farm by the district technical committee and in line with guidelines drawn by my ministry authority is hereby granted to you to wind up your business and harvest your crop or your livestock strictly up to the dates shown hereunder 30 September 2007," the notice added.

The Gazetted Land (Consequential Provisions) Act, which repealed the Rural Land Occupiers (Protection from Eviction) Act makes it an offence to occupy or to continue to occupy land without lawful authority after it has been gazetted in accordance with section 16B(2)(a) of the Constitution.

Part of the Act reads: "If a former owner or occupier of Gazetted land who is not lawfully authorised to occupy, hold or use that land does not cease to occupy, hold or use that land after the expiry of the appropriate period referred to in subsection (2)(a) or (b), or, in the case of a former owner or occupier referred to in section 2(b), does not cease to occupy his or her living quarters in contravention of proviso (ii) to section 2(b), he or she shall be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding level seven or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years or to both such fine and such imprisonment."

Zimbabwe began seizing white commercial farms in 2000 after violent bands of war veterans marched on the farms, driving out the farmers and their families. At least 12 farmers died in violent attacks.

President Mugabe said the farm seizures were designed to give land to the black majority, but critics say the unplanned and chaotic exercise has left the country facing a food deficit and international isolation.
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