Rusape farmer arrested after week of harassment
By Alex Bell
A Rusape farmer who has endured more than a week of intimidation and threats by land invaders was arrested on Friday, for refusing to leave his farm. Koos Smit and his family have for the past week remained locked inside their home, after a mob of youths invaded the property last week Tuesday. The group, said to be hired by a Zanu PF official know only as Mr Mukomo, assaulted several of the Smits’ farm workers and the twin Smit sons in an effort to force the family to flee the property. The youths then cut off all electricity and water supplies to the farm to try flush the family out of their home, where they remained locked inside until Thursday.
The invaders also stopped the family feeding and watering their livestock. The gang of invaders packed up their makeshift camp around the family’s home on Thursday, ending a week-long tense standoff. The Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) president Deon Theron said that the youths had left, because they weren’t paid the promised fee for the invasion. But the good news was short lived, when Koos Smit was arrested on Friday morning. Theron told SW Radio Africa that while Smit and his family were holed up inside their home, Smit had been subpoenaed by the Rusape magistrates court to face charges for refusing to leave his farm. But because Smit was all but trapped inside his property, which was surrounded by land invaders, since last week, he was unable to attend the court hearing. His arrest on Friday is now in connection with contempt charges for missing his court date. Smit has since been released on bail.
Theron said the situation on the Smit property again demonstrates the lawlessness across the country, where land thugs are getting away with violence, while land owners are constantly being hauled before the courts. The CFU head argued such lawlessness is “completely contrary to the Global Political agreement that the political parties in the unity government are supposed to respect.”
The CFU on Thursday lashed out at the government for refusing to intervene in the ongoing land invasions, urging the coalition to act to halt the farm attacks.At least five other Rusape farming families have come under threat by land invaders since December last year, with most of the families being forcibly evicted from their homes. All the families that have been evicted are South African citizens, meant to be protected by a bilateral investment pact between the two countries. That pact, which was only signed late last year, is yet to be ratified in parliament, which both governments have used as an excuse not to intervene.
Three South African farmers who have all lost land in the past year are now set to sue the government for the ongoing land attacks continuing under the guise of land reform. The South African farmers last year approached a civil rights group in their home country to take the Zimbabwe government to court over the land invasions. The group, AfriForum, last week won a High Court bid allowing them to sue Zimbabwe, in an effort to enforce a 2008 regional ruling declaring Robert Mugabe’s land ‘reform’ exercise unlawful.
The ruling was passed down by the rights court of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which ordered the government to protect farmers and their rights to their land. The ruling has been completely ignored and the government has even stated it no longer recognises the SADC Tribunal’s orders. AfriForum is now trying to have the ruling enforced from within South Africa. AfriForum’s lawyer, Willie Spies, said in a statement on Friday that the papers had been served by AfriForum’s legal representatives in Harare. Spies said that the Zimbabwean government had until next Thursday to give notice of whether it intended opposing the application, which is set to be hear in court in February.