A wave of illegal asset grabs by Zimbabwean officials has ruined a South African farmer and hit at least 20 others, many of them foreigners, farming in the south of the country.
The farmer, Peter Henning, complained that while the investments of many foreigners in Zimbabwe were protected by an agreement between Zimbabwe and their governments, South Africa had not signed the treaty. This left its nationals vulnerable.
Henning, a South African who formerly grew sugar cane in Hippo Valley in the Chiredzi district, said officials including members of the police, army and prisons staff had descended on his farm in November and impounded agricultural equipment worth R3-million. This included tractors, trailers and mills.
Henning said he had since won a court order mandating the return of the equipment. But, as it had been sold at auction, he doubted it could be recovered. ”Even if it is returned, it will be ruined,” he said.
He understood that, at the auction, only government officials and war veterans had been present and that no money had changed hands. In effect, the assets had been shared out.
The seizure, carried out by the Zimbabwe government’s Provincial Farm Material and Equipment Acquisition Committee, had been filmed by Hennings’s son, Greig.
The video had been flighted on December 23 and 25 in Britain by both the BBC and ITV, as well as on CNN and CBS in the United States.
Henning said he knew of six other farmers in the Chiredzi area, including two South Africans and two Mauritians, whose assets had been seized, and of about 15 who had suffered a similar fate elsewhere.
He pointed out that the seizures were different from those conducted by war veterans during Zimbabwe’s chaotic land reform programme, as they involved public servants and an officially sanctioned agency.
Speaking to the Mail & Guardian from Makhado (formerly Louis Trichardt), Henning said that although intimidation and politics had played a role in the seizure, the fundamental motive was probably greed.
”Convenient interpretations of policy by local bureaucrats and party hacks have been used for the unlawful seizure of equipment for self-enrichment,” he said. ”We consider ourselves victims of looting by the police, army and prisons service.”
According to Henning, a Bilateral Promotion and Protection Agreement, covering investment and property, protected investors from Scandinavia and states such as Germany, the Netherlands, France and Italy from unlawful asset grabs.
”Yet South Africa, Zimbabwe’s largest trading partner, gives me and fellow South African investors in that country little or no protection.”
The two governments were due to sign the bilateral agreement, but had not been able to reach consensus, he said.
According to Henning, a large contingent of officials arrived at his farm gate in May last year and proceeded to take an inventory of the equipment. He insisted the officials were not carrying the required docu-mentation, nor had they followed the lawful procedure for the attachment of privately owned assets.
He added that the officials were ”commanded” by Provincial Assistant Commissioner Loveness Ndanga, and included members of Zimbabwe regional police, national army, prisons service, officials of the Zimbabwe National Water Authority and members of the Provincial War Vets Association.
In early November, the Zimbabwe Regional Police had posted four armed guards in front of the farm to prevent the Hennings from using or ”sabotaging” equipment. Henning said he had informed his attorney and the South African embassy in Harare, which had written to the police, the Masvingo governor, Willard Chiwewe, and the Agriculture Minister, Joseph Made. Henning also wrote to the police telling them that a legal challenge to the seizures had been mounted and that a hearing date had been set down in the Harare High Court.
Believing that they had forestalled the seizures, he and his wife left for South Africa on November 18. On the same day, they learned that the committee had arrived at the farm with police and army vehicles and a crane.
The removal of the equipment was carried out over a two-day period, while Greig Henning captured it on film.
Despite a court order against the police, instructing them to return the equipment immediately, the police distributed the more valuable items, including tractors, among themselves.
Contacted by the M&G this week, Wayne Bvudzijena, Zimbabwean police spokesperson, said he was not ”privy to the contents of the high court order”. Calls to Ndanga, Made and Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa went unanswered.
The Department of Foreign Affairs was sent a list of questions about the incident, including one about whether South Africa and Zimbabwe had failed to conclude a treaty protecting South African investors in its northern neighbour. No answer had been received at the time of going to press.
Mugabe to sidestep issue of human rights record?
The Zimbabwean government this week dismissed a condemnation by the African Union’s human rights watchdog saying the commission was merely doing the bidding of Britain and the United States.
William Nhara, the principal director of the Ministry of Interactive Affairs, dismissed the criticism, alleging that the members of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) who wrote the report had been ”bought off” by the Western powers to find fault with the Harare government. ”It is inconceivable that the African heads of state would endorse the report at the African Union summit,” said Nhara in an interview with Voice of America.
History suggests Robert Mugabe will sidestep it at the upcoming AU summit.
Mugabe must find a way to avert discussion of Zimbabwe’s human rights record at the summit in Khartoum later this month. It is a game he and his ministers have successfully played in the past.
Meeting at its headquarters in Banjul last month, the 11-member African Commission of Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) expressed alarm at the urban ”clean-up” campaign that has left more than 700 000 Zimbabweans homeless.
Western leaders and the United Nations have slammed so-called Operation Murambatsvina as Mugabe’s naked revenge against opposition strongholds that delivered every urban seat to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in last year’s parliamentary election.
But the ACHPR’s criticism is a first to emanate from Africa.
It condemned the growing climate of impunity in Zimbabwe and the lack of respect for the rule of law. The South African government said it was premature to respond at this stage.
”This is a report of an autonomous independent body of the African Union,” said Foreign Affairs spokesperson Nomfanelo Kota. ”It has to be tabled at the next summit of the AU. In discussion there, Zimbabwe will get a chance to respond. South Africa will be bound by any decision taken by the AU.”
In 2002, the ACHPR said Mugabe’s government could not wash its hands of the human rights violations that took place during the elections campaign that year.
But, the commission’s report was not debated by the 2003 AU summit in Maputo, ostensibly because it had not been translated into French.
In Addis Ababa a year later, Mugabe’s Foreign Minister, Stan Mudenge, said it could still not be debated because his government had not yet seen it.
His claim was dismissed by one of the report’s authors, South African academic Barney Pityana.
Foreign minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma angrily denied reports that she had supported Mudenge’s bid to shelve the matter. — Jean-Jacques Cornish and Andrew Meldrum