FLASHBACK . . . a white commercial farmer supervising workers in his tobacco field (file pic)

HARARE – Four Zimbabwean white farmers who were ordered to leave their properties within 24 hours last Tuesday have been issued with warrants of arrest by a magistrate in the southeastern farming town of Chipinge, the Commercial Framers Union (CFU) said on Thursday.

Magistrate Samuel Zuze convicted Algernon Taffs of Chirega Farm, Dawie Joubert of Stilfontein, Mike Odendaal of Hillcrest and Mike Jahme of Silverton Farm for refusing to vacate their properties and sentenced them to a US$800 fine each. He ordered that they immediately move out of their homes and vacate their farms by Wednesday evening.

But the farmers filed an urgent appeal in the High Court in Harare Wednesday evening, a move that under court procedures means the ruling of the lower court is automatically put on hold, allowing the farmers to remain on their properties until conclusion of their appeal against both conviction and sentencing.

CFU director Hendrik Olivier said: "It has just been reported that Magistrate Samuel Zuze has refused to recognise the High Court (appeal) and has issued a warrant of arrest for all the farmers who were in court on Tuesday and to whom he issued eviction orders. The first farmer to be arrested has been Mr Dawie Joubert."

In terms of the eviction orders the farmers should have vacated their properties by 5pm on Wednesday.

"However, the 24-hour period given to them to vacate their homes and properties of up to 50 years proved to be an almost impossible task to complete in such a short time," Olivier said.

The mainly white CFU last has criticised the power-sharing government between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai for failing to end chaos in the farming sector.

The government has watched helplessly as members of the security forces and hardliner activists of Mugabe’s ZANU PF party intensified in recent weeks a drive to seize all land still in white hands, causing deep frustration among the farmers.

The beleaguered white farmers, in a strongly worded statement last week labelled the ongoing farm seizures a “crime against humanity” and called on the coalition government to act to end lawlessness on farms in keeping with the 2008 power-sharing agreement that gave birth to the administration.

Under the power-sharing agreement Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara, who is third signatory to the pact, promised to restore the rule of law in the farming sector, including carrying out a land audit to weed out multiple farm owners – nearly all of them senior ZANU PF officials who have hoarded most of the best farms seized from whites.

The coalition government is yet to act to fulfil the promise to restore law and order in the key agricultural sector, while more farms – including some owned by foreigners and protected under bilateral investment protection agreements between Zimbabwe and other nations – have been seized over the past few months.