JOHANNESBURG –The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal at the weekend said ongoing farm disturbances in Zimbabwe were beyond the regional court’s control and that it was up to southern African leaders to deal with the matter.

SADC Tribunal registrar Charles Mkandawire told ZimOnline that while the Tribunal ordered the Harare government to stop farm seizures and compensate farmers whose properties it had taken there was little the Namibia-based court could do to enforce the ruling.

“The Zimbabwe issue is no longer in the hands of the Tribunal. We have done what we are mandated to do but cannot enforce the decisions. We have reported the farm violations to the SADC summit. It is the SADC summit which now has to enforce the decisions made by the Tribunal,” said Mkandawire.

The Tribunal ruled in favour of a group of Zimbabwean white farmers in November 2008 saying the country’s land reform programme launched in 2000 is racist in nature and violates the SADC Treaty.

The Zimbabwe government has however ignored the ruling and has since continued to acquire farms owned by the white farmers who are protected by the judgment.

Last year Harare announced that it was pulling out of the Tribunal saying the protocol setting up the regional court needed ratification by the required number of SADC member states for the court’s rulings to be binding.

The decade-long farm invasions, which Mugabe says were necessary to ensure blacks also had access to arable land that they were denied by previous white-led governments, have been blamed for plunging Zimbabwe into food shortages.

Once a net food exporter Zimbabwe has avoided mass starvation over the past decade only because international relief agencies were quick to chip in with food handouts.