Supreme Court again orders evictions of squatters

Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court on Friday again told police to evict squatters from 1,600 white-owned farms, AFP reported. The decision nullified a lower court order that had attempted to contradict the nation’s highest judges. The ruling from the full bench of the Supreme Court came after about 100 supporters of President Robert Mugabe stormed into the courtroom, delaying the hearing for more than one hour.

A court official said the protesters appeared to have been led by veterans of Zimbabwe’s 1970s liberation war, who have also led the farm invasions. Friday’s ruling reaffirmed a Supreme Court order handed down two weeks ago, which declared the government’s controversial “fast track” land reform programme unconstitutional and ordered police to evict squatters from white-owned farms.

A lower court judge earlier this week attempted to overturn that order, after a black peasant farmer filed a suit in the High Court. Mugabe’s government has launched a controversial programme to seize commercial farmland, much of it owned by the white minority, to settle black peasant farmers. The Commercial Farmers’ Union (CFU), which represents mostly white farmers, has challenged the legality of Mugabe’s scheme before the Supreme Court.