Ongoing Zimbabwe farm invasions keeping investors away (News Feature)

By Columbus Mavhunga Jan 9, 2010, 12:48 GMT

Harare - Zimbabwe's remaining white farmers say continued farm invasions as well as human and property rights abuses by officials from President Robert Mugabe's party are keeping international investors away from the poverty-stricken country.

Zimbabwe had 4,500 white commercial farmers and agriculture was the cornerstone of the economy before the government's controversial land seizures began 10 years ago.

According to the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), 152 of the 300 commercial farms still in operation are now being targeted for eviction.

The situation has worsened since last month when Mugabe told his Zanu-PF party that whites were not Zimbabweans.

'The New Year has presented nothing but more troubles for farmers and it is a serious situation. Farmers would have preferred to be in the fields. But they are constantly being harassed, CFU president Deon Theron said Saturday.

'The police still fail to act on court orders protecting farmers, while the law is being abused to dispossess people of their property on the basis of race,' he told the German Press Agency dpa.

Theron said it was increasingly difficult for members of the CFU who face state-sponsored violent and extra-judicial evictions.

'On one hand they use militia and violence to drive us out and on the other they use the police and the courts. We are in a no win situation and the situation has not changed,' he said.

Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai formed a coalition government last February following a disputed and violent presidential run-off which Tsvangirai said claimed more than 200 lives of his supporters.

The coalition has been marred by disagreements between Mugabe and Tsvangirai, dampening prospects of attracting investors or reviving a near-collapsed economy.

'The transitional government has only been on paper for us. There has been no help forthcoming at all,' according to Theron.

'This is happening at a time when we need investors to revive the economy. But investors now doubt to risk their investment in a country that has no respect for property rights,' he said.

Farmers who are foreigners have been systematically targeted, the latest being two South Africans, he said.

'We thought the formation of the coalition government was the beginning of democracy in terms of respect of property rights and rule of law, but the opposite is what is happening. This is counterproductive in a country that was beginning to show positive move in its economy and has a negative impact in the re-engagement with the international community, 'said Theron.

'No investor wants to put their money in a country that has no respect to property rights. What is really disturbing is that there is no prosecution to such people who are violating the law.'

The CFU claims senior Zanu-PF officials led by former Land Reform and State Security minister Didymus Mutasa threatened white commercial farmer Gavin Woest, with death last week, telling him he had minutes to vacant his property. Mutasa's wife was reportedly involved in the seizure.

Responding to the claim Saturday, Mutasa told dpa: 'These white people create stories. I have not gone to America or Britain to look for land. I get my land in Zimbabwe which is my country. What is wrong with that?'

Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change party recently released a report on the continued harassment of white farmers in Zimbabwe despite the formation of the coalition government.

The report says 1,400 cases of harassment of white farmers were recorded and names the senior Zanu-PF officials who have been driving the farm invasions.