White Zimbabwean farmer face jail

Nine white farmers could face up to two years in jail for refusing to leave their properties to make way for blacks under Zimbabwe’s land redistribution scheme, the state Sunday Mail newspaper reported.

The farmers were ordered to hand over their properties by September 30 and are scheduled to appear on Friday in the district court at Chegutu, 60 miles south-west of Harare, the paper said.

The government insists its programme to nationalise white-owned farms was completed more than a year ago and left about 300 white farmers on the land. But farmers’ groups have since reported continued land seizures and arrests of defiant owners.

Some 5,000 white-owned farms have been taken over in the often-violent seizures that began in 2000 and disrupted the agriculture-based economy in the former regional breadbasket, which now suffers chronic shortages of food, hard currency and petrol.

The Sunday Mail said the nine farmers had asked that the new seizures go straight to appeal in the nation’s highest court, the Supreme Court.

But prosecutors argued they should have vacated their properties first.

“The farmers have come to court with dirty hands. They are expected first to comply with a lawful order and later challenge it,” the paper quoted prosecutor Blackson Matemba saying.

The maximum penalty for defying land handover laws is up to two years in jail, a fine or both.

Previous ownership challenges by whites have failed or been subjected to protracted legal delays.

The government says the laws are designed to correct colonial-era imbalances in land ownership

Last month, the government hurried through legislation forcing whites and foreign interests to hand over 51 per cent control of their businesses to blacks.

The Indiginisation and Economic Empowerment Bill has still to be signed into law by President Robert Mugabe. New legislation proposing identical measures for blacks to take over a controlling stake of the nation’s mines goes before the Harare Parliament when it reconvenes October 30.

The central bank has cautioned against hasty seizures as the country faces its worst economic crisis since independence, with the world’s highest official inflation of nearly 7,000 per cent and shelves empty of the corn meal staple and basic goods.

Independent estimates put real inflation closer to 25,000% and the International Monetary Funds has forecast it reaching 100,000 per cent by the end of the year.

The Sunday Mail, a government mouthpiece, quoted official statistics that only 48 of about 80 companies listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange have black chief executives.

“If one goes to Japan or China, they are the majority players of their economies, but when we do it in Africa, people make noise,” said Indigenisation and Empowerment Minister Paul Mangwana, the Sunday Mail reported.

In separate report, the paper said economic hardship had triggered a sharp increase in grave robbing – despite centuries-old taboos on the desecration of graves.

Ornaments, traditional clay pots, metal plates and flowers have been stolen, and thieves were removing headstones before concrete foundations hardened – to make tiles, kitchen units and furniture facings, the paper said.