Ex VP of farm union evicted from his land
SW Radio Africa News Stories for 14 June 2010
By Lance Guma
14 June 2010
After the recent evictions of 16 white commercial farmers two more, including Trevor Gifford the former Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) Vice President, took place on Sunday evening. The other farmer evicted was French-Mauritian Michel Fayd’herbe, who was forced off his La Lucie Estate. Gifford was hosting a luncheon for 14 guests when dozens of land invaders arrived on his property in Chipinge at around 3pm on Sunday. The mob became very threatening, eventually invading the property and barricading Gifford, his wife and their guests in the house.
Newsreel spoke to Charles Taffs, the current CFU Vice President, and he told us the mob demanded that Gifford leave the property that same day and Gifford managed to load some of his possessions into the cars belonging to his guests. Taffs went on to say, ‘before leaving they made him to sign a letter stating that his house was empty. Quite clearly it was not but he had to sign it to gain his own release.’ By 11pm that night Gifford had been forced off the property. So who is behind this latest wave of farm invasions? Taffs told us they believed the invaders were responding to calls by the Minister of State for Presidential Affairs, Didymus Mutasa, who recently urged people to defy court orders relating to land issues. Two weeks ago Mutasa said Zimbabwe had a law that farm cases could not be brought to court. Taffs said this was ‘absolute rubbish’ and that ‘there is a court process in any eviction. He said; ‘Basically the eviction process has a court of appeal and this is where all these farmers are. They have appealed the position and the courts are pending in making judgments.’
Gifford was due in court on Tuesday and like many of the other farmers targeted in the past couple of weeks had a court order allowing him to remain on his property. ‘These thugs are taking the law into their own hands, evicting people without due process,’ Taffs said. The CFU Vice President meanwhile expressed frustration at the silence coming from the coalition government. He said they were not getting any assistance from the police or anyone in government. With the cash-strapped government battling to attract foreign investors it remains to be seen how they hope to achieve this when violent mobs are roaming the country, taking over farms that are often protected by bilateral investment protection agreements and court orders.