Ben Hlatshwayo’s mistake was not in using his power as a Zimbabwe high court judge to steal a farm from one of his white compatriots. His error was in proving to be a decent enough farmer to catch the rapacious eye of the president’s wife.
It doesn’t do to have anything worth taking in Zimbabwe these days, particularly prime farmland with a crop nearly ready for harvest. But Justice Hlatshwayo, a veteran of the liberation war against white rule who was promoted from obscurity to the high court by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to give legal authority to the expropriation of thousands of white-owned farms, no doubt felt protected by his status.
He was rewarded with his own land, taken six years ago when he arrived at Vernon Nicolle’s 580 hectares in Banket, snatched the keys from the maid and declared the place his. The takeover was in breach of an order from Hlatshwayo’s own court but those were rough days, with white farmers being beaten and murdered, and there was little Nicolle could do.
But now Hlatshwayo has discovered there is someone higher up the pecking order of plunder. After Grace Mugabe’s gaze fell upon his farm, a clique of Cabinet ministers was assembled to tell the judge to hand it over and Hlatshwayo has been left bleating in court papers that “there is clearly no lawful basis” for seizing the land and accusing a holding company owned by Mugabe of “unlawful conduct.”
According to court papers, Hlatshwayo accuses the Mugabe family of being multiple farm owners but still wanting the one the judge took from Nicolle.
The affidavit says Hlatshwayo was summoned to a meeting with three of Mugabe’s then Cabinet ministers — security minister Didymus Mutasa, justice minister Patrick Chinamasa and agricultural mechanization minister Joseph Made — where he was told the president’s wife needed his farm. The Zimbabwe press reported that she wants to give it to her son from her first marriage as a birthday gift.
Hlatshwayo then complains that “there is clearly no lawful basis” for seizing his land and accuses the holding company, Gushungo — named after Robert Mugabe’s family totem — of being “intent upon imposing its will regardless of observing due process of the law.”
Mutasa responded by saying that Hlatshwayo has been given alternative land near Mutare in the east of the country.
His is not the first farm the president’s wife has targeted. She first took Iron Mask estate in Mazowe in 2003 from a couple in their 70s. Then she grabbed Foyle farm, one of the biggest dairy operations in the country. Production halved within months of the seizure.
Hlatshwayo’s problems might have been avoided if he had not proved to be a fairly useful farmer. Most of the Zanu-PF elite plundered farms for what could be sold for a quick profit and then let the land lie fallow, sometimes using it as collateral for loans to buy luxury cars and houses in plush Harare suburbs. The judge, on the other hand, produced a regular crop of maize, soya and sorghum.
Whatever the legal merits or otherwise of Hlatshwayo’s case against the Mugabes, he faces another problem of his own making. The courts are now so terrified of Mugabe and his cronies that no judge will agree to hear Hlatshwayo’s case.
VAGUE: The criteria of the amnesty remain unclear, but it would cover political violence from 1999 to today, and those convicted of murder or drug trafficking would not qualify Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists detained for political reasons. The measure had long been sought by the US-backed opposition. It is the latest concession Rodriguez has made since taking the reins of the country on Jan. 3 after the brazen seizure of then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Rodriguez told a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the ruling party-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly would take up the bill with urgency. Rodriguez also announced the shutdown
Civil society leaders and members of a left-wing coalition yesterday filed impeachment complaints against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, restarting a process sidelined by the Supreme Court last year. Both cases accuse Duterte of misusing public funds during her term as education secretary, while one revives allegations that she threatened to assassinate former ally Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The filings come on the same day that a committee in the House of Representatives was to begin hearings into impeachment complaints against Marcos, accused of corruption tied to a spiraling scandal over bogus flood control projects. Under the constitution, an impeachment by the
Exiled Tibetans began a unique global election yesterday for a government representing a homeland many have never seen, as part of a democratic exercise voters say carries great weight. From red-robed Buddhist monks in the snowy Himalayas, to political exiles in megacities across South Asia, to refugees in Australia, Europe and North America, voting takes place in 27 countries — but not China. “Elections ... show that the struggle for Tibet’s freedom and independence continues from generation to generation,” said candidate Gyaltsen Chokye, 33, who is based in the Indian hill-town of Dharamsala, headquarters of the government-in-exile, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). It
A Virginia man having an affair with the family’s Brazilian au pair on Monday was found guilty of murdering his wife and another man that prosecutors say was lured to the house as a fall guy. Brendan Banfield, a former Internal Revenue Service law enforcement officer, told police he came across Joseph Ryan attacking his wife, Christine Banfield, with a knife on the morning of Feb. 24, 2023. He shot Ryan and then Juliana Magalhaes, the au pair, shot him, too, but officials argued in court that the story was too good to be true, telling jurors that Brendan Banfield set
RSS