This follows after a legal battle spanning several months, undertaken by AfriForum on behalf of farmers in Zimbabwe, which forms part of AfriForum’s civil sanction campaign against Zimbabwe.
In November 2008, the SADC Tribunal ruled in favour of Mr Michael Campbell and 78 other Zimbabwean farmers that the Zimbabwean Government’s land reform programme was racist and unlawful. In his reaction to this, Pres Robert Mugabe described the ruling as “nonsense and of no consequence” to Zimbabwe. The tribunal followed up its ruling with a contempt ruling and costs order in June 2009.
On 26 February 2010, the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria registered these rulings in South Africa. They are now rulings of a South African court and as such the cost order is a judgement that can be executed locally.
In 2009 AfriForum also launched a very successful campaign when it became known that an international dairy company was purchasing milk from a farm that had been confiscated by the Mugabe-regime and transferred to Pres Mugabe’s wife, Ms Grace Mugabe. International pressure lead to a decision by the dairy company not to purchase milk from the said farm.
Mr Louis Fick (the first applicant in the current legal process) is a South African citizen, farming on Friedawil in the Chinhoyi-district. His farm was earmarked for land redistribution and he was effectively chased off his land last year. At the moment, Mr Fick is standing trial on criminal charges that he “failed to co-operate with the Zimbabwean land reform programme”. If found guilty, he faces a sentence of two years in a Zimbabwean jail. Mr Fick could not join today’s process, as he is on Friedawil to try and recover his remaining personal movable assets from the homestead, after the home had been burgled and looted.
Last year when it became known that the South African Government was on the verge of entering a bilateral investment agreement that would exclude South African farmers from protection, AfriForum assisted Mr Fick in an attempt to obtain an interdict against the signing of such a discriminating treaty.
The matter was settled, and the South African Government recommitted itself to the protection of South African farmers, as well as to the upholding of the already mentioned SADC Tribunal’s ruling.
AfriForum regards it as our duty to hold the South African government to these commitments. More particulars of future legal and civil action will be announced in due course.
* The Eye
