Posted on 08/28/2002 6:20:58 PM PDT by Clive
JEREMY Callow, the Harare lawyer who has successfully helped hundreds of embattled commercial farmers challenge the seizure of their farms by President Robert Mugabe's government, yesterday said he feared for his life after receiving a death threat from an anonymous caller this week.
Callow, a senior lawyer with Stumbles & Rowe, a Harare law firm, told High Court judge Justice Benjamin Paradza when he appeared in the court to represent more farmers that he had been warned that if he goes to Karoi again he would be killed.
"Someone called me at about 06:25 am on Monday and told me that if they see me going to Karoi, they will kill me," Callow told the court after successfully securing a court order invalidating the government's Section 8 orders issued to about 50 farmers.
He said he was worried about the threat in the light of a case where three weeks ago ruling ZANU PF's militant war veterans openly attacked court officials in Chipinge.
The mob accused the court officials of being lenient to people suspected of burning down three tractors owned by the government's District Development Fund by granting them bail.
Callow said he travels to Karoi frequently to represent his clients in court, the bulk of whom own farms in the Hurungwe-Tengwe-Karoi area.
He said he is writing a report, which he would give to the police and the Law Society of Zimbabwe.
Meanwhile Justice Paradza issued a consent order invalidating Section 8 orders issued against 54 farmers, most of them from Mashonaland West province.
Nelson Mutsonziwa, from the Attorney-General's Office and representing the government, said the state conceded that proper procedures were not followed in issuing the orders so they were of no force and effect.
In all the cases, the government's initial Section 5 orders indicating its intention to seize the farms were only served on the farmers and not on the registered property rights holders, making all subsequent orders technically invalid.
Mutsonziwa said in such cases, where the orders have been struck down as invalid, the government will have to re-start the whole process once more.
But some of the farmers involved have already been evicted from their properties while those who tried to resist have been arrested.
I'm sorry to say this, but those humans who are still in Zimbabwe today must be slow and dull. There is no other possible explanantion for them to remain in that (very dangerous) third-world sewer. And I don't want to hear the old, "Well they were born here and this has always been their home and besides where would they go" crap. Believe me, if my home is burning down around me, I am getting out of there as fast as I can.
By the way, Clive, have you heard from Cathy Buckley lately? Every time I see one of your Zimbabwe posts, I wonder if Mugabe's animals have come for her yet. I really hope she wakes up in time to escape.
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