AFRIFORUM TO COURT RE RSA / ZIMBABWE AGREEMENT
AfriForum will assist a group of South African farmers with land in Zimbabwe this week to prevent a discriminatory investment agreement between the governments of South Africa and Zimbabwe, which is to be signed in Harare on Friday.
This agreement, known by the abbreviation BIPPA, has the objective of protecting current and future investments of South Africans in Zimbabwe, but expressly excludes the investments of South African farmers who have been affected by the land reform programme of Robert Mugabe.
AfriForum has made the legal opinion of one of the foremost South African human rights advocates available to the Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Rob Davies. This opinion makes it clear that the proposed agreement is in contravention of the South African Constitution, several international legal principles, as well as existing court orders of the Supreme Court in Pretoria and the tribunal of SADEC.
If the signing ceremony were to proceed, an application for an interdict against it will be submitted to the North Gauteng Supreme Court in Pretoria on Friday.
The group of farmers are being represented by Mr Louis Fick, a farmer of the farm Friedawil near Chinoye in the east of Zimbabwe. Fick is a South African citizen and has been farming in Zimbabwe in Friedawil since 1993.
He was one of 79 farmers who were successful with legal action at a tribunal of SADEC (the Southern African Development and Economic Community) in November 2008. At the time, the tribunal made history with its finding that President Robert Mugabe's land-grabbing programme is racist and illegal, and therefore has to be terminated.
Mugabe however did not pay heed to the tribunal's findings and stepped up his programme. After the finding, Fick's farm was also occupied by a group under the instruction of a senior official of the Zimbabwean Reserve Bank, Mr Mashiringwani.
This group time and again prevented Fick from caring for his livestock. This caused the deaths of 200 pigs, as well as other livestock, due to starvation and thirst. Because of these desperate circumstances, Fick recently had to get rid of all his remaining livestock on the farm.
After not complying with an official notice ordering him to vacate his farm, Fick was arrested and detained for a night in the police cells at Chinoye. He has since been charged and will soon stand trial on a charge of disrupting Mugabe's land reform programme. If he were to be found "guilty" of this "misdemeanour", he may be sentenced up to two years imprisonment in a Zimbabwean jail.
Fick and his family are currently living in Harare.
Statement issued by Willie Spies, AfriForum legal representative, November 23 2009
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