Mugabe urged to intervene

Zimbabwe’s Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) launched a two-pronged bid to end ongoing farm occupations, appealing for urgent intervention by President Robert Mugabe, while naming him in a new legal application before the High Court, the official ‘The Herald’ reported on Wednesday.

In a petition to Mugabe, the newspaper said, CFU President Timothy Henwood requested him to intervene in the crisis. At the same time, the CFU lodged a third legal action before the High Court, which has twice declared the farm occupations by ruling party supporters illegal and ordered the occupiers to vacate.

However, according to the petition, the CFU is prepared to drop the legal proceeding if Mugabe takes immediate action. The new application names Mugabe as a respondent, along with the police commissioner and Chenjerai Hunzvi, the leader of the war veterans’ association spearheading the invasions.

It calls for urgent action to redress “a major resurgence of farm invasions” over the past two weeks, and in view of death threats made against farmers by veterans of the country’s liberation war. The application to the High Court states that the war veterans are occupying farms and issuing eviction orders with “no legal authority”, and the “death threats are being issued with such vehemence and conviction that it would be foolhardy for anyone to ignore them”.