Hundreds of white commercial farmers face eviction

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has passed a decree, amending the country's Land Acquisition Act so that white commercial farmers can be forced off their land with immediate effect. Mugabe used a presidential decree to amend the law at the weekend so his government could seize white-owned farms, targeted for redistribution to landless blacks, despite legal challenges from the owners. The decision means that farmers who have been issued with acquisition orders by the government will have to stop farming immediately and remain confined to their houses, which they will have to vacate after three months. Previously, land-acquisition orders had to pass through the courts first, now the courts will examine cases retrospectively. The President of the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) president Colin Cloete, told IRIN that farming was likely to stop on almost 800 farms currently under acquisition orders. "These regulations have widespread implications for the commercial agricultural sector both in respect of continuing farming operations and the resettlement programme," he said. The government said it had taken the decision because the farmers were abusing the court system to frustrate land reform. But the CFU said it had agreed with government earlier this year to drop court cases against it as a precursor to a negotiated deal over land redistribution. Economists told IRIN that the decision to evict farmers from land targeted for acquisition would fuel the country's growing food crisis and further reduce export earnings as more farmers abandoned commercial agriculture. Mugabe's decision to evict white farmers came in the same week as a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) assessment mission was about to begin work in the country. The mission, which also comprises people from the European Commission (EC), Commonwealth Secretariat and the World Bank, as well as technical advisers from the UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) will try to come up with a programme for land reform acceptable to all stakeholders. Self-styled war veterans and militants loyal to the government have occupied an estimated 1,700 white-owned farms over the last 18 months, demanding that they be redistributed to landless blacks. These occupations and the violence that has often accompanied them, has meant that farming activities have been seriously disrupted.