Zimbabwean judge asked to tell if he occupies former white farm
http://www.monstersandcritics.com
Nov 28, 2010, 13:30 GMT
Harare – For the first time, a Zimbabwean high court judge has been
challenged to admit that he occupies former white-owned land seized in
President Robert Mugabe’s campaign to drive off white farmers, a lawyer
confirmed Sunday.
Lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa said that high court judge Chinembiri Bhunu had been
asked to confirm if he had been allocated one or more farms under Mugabe’s
revolutionary land reform programme, and to supply details of how long he
had been in occupation.
He had been also asked to disclose if the former white owner had been
compensated, Mtetwa said.
About 4,000 white farmers have been driven off their land since Mugabe
launched the seizures in 2008, setting off the collapse of the formerly
vigorous agricultural economy.
National law demands that they be compensated, but farm union officials say
perhaps only 20 have received any money.
Mtetwa is representing dispossessed white farmer Roy Bennett, also a leading
member of pro-democracy Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s party in the
country’s strife-ridden coalition government.
Bennett, constantly targeted by Mugabes security agents, underwent a
harrowing six month trial on charges of terrorism which carry the death
sentence with Bhunu as the judge.
Immediately before the judge was due to pronounce his verdict in May,
Bennett was reported as saying that he was certain he would be convicted
because Bhunu had been given a farm and could not be expected to deliver an
independent judgement.
Bhunu acquitted him, and is now suing Bennett for one million US dollars for
defamation.
Farmer Bruce Campbell confirmed to the German Press Agency dpa that Bhunu
had taken over his farm in the Marondera district east of Harare, from which
he was forced in 2002.
Also this weekend, the supreme court dismissed an appeal by the
predominantly-white Commercial Farmers Union to impose a moratorium on land
seizures that are continuing against the last estimated 300 white farmers.
The union had argued that the government had long since achieved its aims of
providing blacks with land, and that continued evictions amounted to racist
persecution.
Chief justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, deputy chief justice Paddington Garwe and
justice Luke Malaba, all on the country’s five-member supreme court, have
been identified as having received substantial white-owned properties.
They have continued to make rulings on challenges to the constitutionality
of the seizures.