South African Government Seizes Zimbabwe Properties To Compensate Zimbabwe Farmers For Lost Land

Business Day (Johannesburg)
South Africa: Zimbabwe Properties Attached to Pay Farmers

Stephan Hofstatter

30 March 2010


Johannesburg — CIVIL rights group AfriForum plans to serve attachment orders today against four properties in Cape Town owned by the Zimbabwe government.

This marks the first time Zimbabwe's properties in SA risk being sold to compensate some white farmers in Zimbabwe for land seizures deemed illegal by a regional court in Namibia.

The move could set a precedent for hundreds of dispossessed farmers seeking to enforce much larger compensation claims through courts in SA.

AfriForum legal representative Willie Spies said attachment orders would be noted against two non-diplomatic properties in Zonnebloem, one in Kenilworth and another in Wynberg.

Its lawyers planned to commence proceedings at the sheriff's offices in Barrack Street .

The sheriff visited the properties earlier this month to attach moveables belonging to the Zimbabwean government, but had found three vacant and one being rented to a third party, he said.

A writ of execution was issued by the North Gauteng High Court on Friday and would be executed today for a costs order against the Zimbabwean government of R113000 awarded by the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) Tribunal in Windhoek last year.

"This is a small amount, but we are sending a symbolic message to the Zimbabwean government that, contrary to President Robert Mugabe's statements that the Sadc rulings are of no consequence to Zimbabwe, they are enforceable in SA," said Spies.

Zimbabwe does not recognise the Sadc ruling. It has argued that the ruling has yet to be ratified by the regional body's summit. Government spokesman George Charamba previously told Business Day there was therefore no question of Zimbabwean assets being attached in SA. He could not be reached for comment yesterday.
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The combined value of the properties far exceeds the costs order. But Spies said their sale in execution could be delayed until a much larger claim worth tens of millions was instituted by 79 farmers who were party to the Sadc ruling.

The Sadc Tribunal previously declared Zimbabwe's 2005 constitutional amendment that allowed the government to redistribute white-owned farms without compensation as racially discriminatory and illegal. It ordered the government to pay dispossessed farmers fair compensation, and protect the property rights of those still on their farms.

Zimbabwe's High Court rejected an application to enforce the Sadc judgment in Zimbabwe. Judge Bharat Patel said this would be "fundamentally contrary to public policy" by forcing Zimbabwe to reverse its land reforms since 2000.

But last month , the North Gauteng High Court ruled the Sadc judgements, including the costs award, were enforceable in SA.