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White farmers could go to jail
07/10/2007 21:46 - (SA)
Angus Shaw
Harare - 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 had been ordered to hand over their properties by September 30.
The paper said they were scheduled to appear in the district court at Chegutu, 100km south-west of Harare, on Friday.
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.
Chronic shortages of food
About 5 000 white-owned farms have been taken over in 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 gasoline.
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.
The government last month hurried through legislation forcing whites and foreign interests to hand over 51% control of their businesses to blacks.
Shelves empty of corn meal
The Indigenisation 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 on 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% 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% 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.
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