ZIMBABWE FARM DISPUTES- Lobby Group To Take Another Step Against SA Government
Shout-Africa News
The lobby group AfriForum will meet with a senior
legal team this week to decide on legal steps agains
the SouthAfrican government in response to the
latter’s neglect to protect thelives and property of
South Africans in Zimbabwe. On 9 June2010,
AfriForum served a lawyer’s letter to the Department
of Tradeand Industry to demand that the South African
government shouldintervene urgently to protect citizens
in Zimbabwe.
There was no response to AfriForum’s letter to the
Department was given time to midnight, 15 June 2010.
This step followed after several South Africans farming
in Zimbabwe had become subject to renewed, exacerbated
onslaughts of land grabbers. In terms of the settlement
reached between AfriForum and the South African government
the BIPPA Trade Agreement, formalised as a court order by the
Gauteng North High Court in Pretoria in November 2009, the
South African government undertook to maintain the rights and
remedies of victims of Zimbabwe’s illegal land expropriation
programme. In terms of the Minister’s affidavits for the case, as
well as the subsequent court order, South Africans have a right
to protection as defined by this agreement.
According to Alana Bailey, deputy CEO of AfriForum, it is
Outrageous that the government does not take steps to comply with
its undertaking to its citizens. “It is even more shocking to see that
the government invites Robert Mugabe as guest to the World Cup Soccer
Tournament, thereby indulging the man responsible for these, as well
as numerous other human rights violations, instead of taking action
against him. This sends a perturbing message regarding the South
African government’s commitment to the
protection of human rights and shows a total lack of respect for not
only South Africans in Zimbabwe, but for all victims of the
Mugabe-regime.”
AfriForum says it will decide on a course of action in accordance with
its legal team’s advice. Meanwhile AfriForum has welcomed the
announcement that the Queen of England has awarded a MBE to Ben Freeth
– the activist for Zimbabwean farmers who had lost their land, whose
struggle is covered so poignantly by the documentary Mugabe and the
White African. AfriForum congratulates Freeth with this well-deserved
honour. According to the Queen’s birthday list of 2010, this award is
made based on “services to the farming community in Zimbabwe”.
The lobby group says it has ‘the greatest respect for Freeth and his
fellow farmers’ who refuse to yield in the face of the injustices of
the Mugabe-regime.
“The only way in which tyrants like Mugabe can be stopped, is when
people refuse to accept their injustices or to be silenced by them,”
Bailey added.
