CFU’s membership drive
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/
Written by Staff Reporter
Tuesday, 09 March 2010 13:23
HARARE – Zimbabwe’s Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) has embarked on a membership drive targeting former members,
in a move meant to provide it with the “financial wherewithal” to mount an effective legal challenge of the country’s controversial land reform programme.
The union, which, at its peak in the late 1990s, was Zimbabwe’s strongest farmers’ body with a membership of more than 4,500, is seeking to bring back into the fold some of its former members who left the organisation in 2000 after they were ejected from their farms by President Robert Mugabe’s supporters.
“While by far the majority of our previous membership are obviously no longer farming and fall into the lowest payment fee category, if all 4,500 previous members all come back on board we will have sufficient funds to
afford the intended cases which will assist farmers in their bid for adequate compensation,” a CFU official said.The drive to entice former members back into the CFU is motivated by the fact that the union still represents all white farmers – both current and evicted – particularly with respect to payment of market-related compensation for properties expropriated by the Mugabe regime since the controversial land seizures began 10 years ago.
Mugabe has refused to pay market-related compensation to dispossessed white farmers, insisting that his government would only pay for infrastructural developments on the acquired farms.
He has insisted that the ‘former colonial master’, Britain, should compensate its kith and kin for the land.Hordes of Zanu (PF) supporters, so-called war veterans and members of the army and police have stepped up farm invasions despite the formation of an inclusive government by Mugabe and arch-rival Morgan Tsvangirai last year. Commercial farmers’ organisations say invaders have since raided at least 100 of the about 300 remaining white-owned commercial farms, a development that has intensified doubts over whether the unity government will withstand attempts by Zanu (PF) hardliners to sabotage it.
Welcomed back to the fold
The CFU official said the courts appeared to be the union’s sole defence at present.
“To this end we once again appeal to all 4,500 previous members to come back into the fold as members again and thereby afford us the financial wherewithal to enable us to pay the costs of an increasing number of cases
which we are undertaking at the moment,” the official said.
The Attorney General’s Office has in recent months stepped up prosecution of white farmers it claims are refusing to vacate land acquired by the government for purposes of redistribution to land less blacks.
This is despite the fact that the Southern African Development (SADC) Tribunal ruled two years ago that the government’s land reform programme is discriminatory and illegal under the SADC Treaty to which Zimbabwe is signatory.
The International Monetary Fund and Western countries have – on top of other conditions – made it clear that they would not consider giving aid to the Harare government while the farm invasions continue.
Zimbabwe relied on food imports and handouts from international food agencies since 2000, mainly due to failure by resettled black peasants to maintain production on former white farms.
Poor performance in the mainstay agricultural sector has also had far reaching consequences as hundreds of thousands of people have lost jobs while the manufacturing sector, starved of inputs from the sector, is
operating below capacity.