By Peta Thornycroft
Independent Foreign Service

More than 200 South African farmers whose land was seized in Zimbabwe
are threatening legal action against the South African government for
apparently excluding them from an investment protection treaty with
Zimbabwe.

They have written to Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies
threatening to take him to the High Court if he fails to provide a copy of
the Bilateral Investment Protection Agreement between the two countries, to
be signed on November 27 in Harare.

Lawyers acting on behalf of the 244 South African farmers, most of
whom have been evicted from their land, wrote to Davies yesterday saying
their clients had to see a copy of the draft agreement by the end of
business today. If not, they would approach the High Court seeking an urgent
interdict to prevent signing of the long-delayed agreement.

Davies told the media a week ago that the draft agreement had an
exclusion clause – unique among all South Africa’s other investment
protection agreements. The clause excluded South African-owned farms seized
in Robert Mugabe’s confiscation of thousands of white-owned farms since
2000.

Davies said it would have been impossible to negotiate this agreement
with a retrospective clause, and South Africa believed it was necessary to
contribute to Zimbabwe’s economic and political stability.

Lawyers for the farmers said in their letter to Davies that their
clients had been involved in “long drawn-out negotiations” with the South
African government over their farms and had been given “certain assurances”
that the trade agreement would “cause the Zimbabwean government to de-list
South African owned farms”.

They had been left with “the expectation that their rights would be
observed” by their government.

The farmers said they needed to see the draft agreement to ensure
their constitutional rights, as well as their expectations and provisions of
international law, had been considered.

They also said they had to consider whether the ruling by the Southern
African Development Community tribunal last year, re-confirmed in June, had
been met.

The tribunal ruled that more than 70 white farmers, including several
South Africans, had suffered racial persecution by Mugabe’s government and
should be allowed to remain on their farms in peace. Those who had already
been evicted should receive fair compensation.

The letter to Davies was sent on behalf of 244 known South African
farmers in Zimbabwe, but there may have been about 500 of them before land
seizures began in 2000. In July there were only about 12 left on small
portions of their original land.

This article was originally published on page 10 of Cape Argus on
November 20, 2009