SOUTHERN AFRICA: IRIN News Briefs
ZIMBABWE: Whites not targeted in land grab
Zimbabwe's deputy attorney general said on Tuesday the government's drive to
seize white-owned farms for landless blacks was legal and did not
discriminate against whites, Reuters reported.
Deputy Attorney-General Bharat Patel told a Supreme Court hearing that the
government distanced itself from violence that followed the invasion of
white-owned farms by war veterans, landless peasants and supporters of the
ruling ZANU-PF party.
"The identification and acquisition of farms under the land reform process
is not wholly or mainly attributable to the race or colour of the
applicant's members and therefore there has been no contravention of the
constitution," Patel said. The mainly white Commercial Farmers Union (CFU),
is challenging the constitutionality of President Robert Mugabe's power to
seize their land with no obligation to pay compensation.
Mugabe's government stood by as hundreds of farms were invaded from February
and ignored High Court orders to drive the squatters out. Earlier this year
Mugabe amended the constitution to give him the power to seize white-owned
farms for blacks with no obligation to pay for the land. He said former
colonial ruler Britain must compensate the farmers.
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