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SA farmer sues Mbeki over Zim
15/07/2007 13:38 - (SA)
ZB du Toit, Rapport
Pretoria - A well-known Free State farmer is suing the South African government for about R80m in damages he suffered from the collapse of his farming interests in Zimbabwe.
Crawford von Abo of Bothaville wants the Pretoria High Court to force the government to institute international arbitration to win back his interests in Zimbabwe. If not, the government must pay for his losses.
Von Abo argues that the government failed to provide him with diplomatic protection, his constitutional right.
The government, President Thabo Mbeki and the ministers of foreign affairs and trade and industry are the first, second, third and fourth respondents in the suit.
In court papers, Von Abo labels the reaction of Mbeki and other government officials on his repeated calls for help as "unreasonable, "evasive", "passive", improper", "sluggish" and "in bad faith".
Von Abo alleges that his losses amount to R80m since the government of President Robert Mugabe five years ago started to repossess his farms.
The Free State farmer argues that he bought his first farm in Zimbabwe in the early 1950s and since then continuously reinvested his profits in that country.
He is asking the court now to order the government to ratify a treaty whereby disputes could be referred to a body of the World Bank, the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).
Although the South African Law Commission already six years ago strongly recommended the government gave the ICSID legal status, it is yet to be done.
Von Abo relies among other things on a ruling of the Constitutional Court in 2004 over a number of South Africans then being held in a prison in Harare. In the ruling by then Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson, the court found that the government had a constitutional obligation to protect the rights of its citizens abroad.
Meanwhile, South Africans increasingly had to feel the brunt of the worsening political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe.
In the last two weeks, the stream of desperate Zimbabwean refugees into South Africa had increased dramatically. This after the number of refugees from Zimbabwe in the last financial year increased by more than half a million compared with the previous year.
In the past week, border towns like Musina had seen a massive flood of Zimbabweans who crossed the border for basic goods.
In the latest onslaught, Mugabe's government on Friday placed a ban on the import of groceries for resale from neighbouring countries.
"It looks like he wants to make sure we die," a shop owner told journalists.
Many shops ran out of goods after Mugabe earlier ordered all prices be slashed by half. In a blitz to enforce the decree, more than a thousand business people and shop managers, including that of South African-owned shops, had been arrested.
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