Mar 28, 2008, 13:02 GMT
Windhoek, Namibia - A tribunal of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on Friday ordered the Zimbabwean government to halt the eviction of 73 farmers in the second such ruling by the regional court defending Zimbabwean farmers against land grabs.
The court, which sits in the Namibian capital Windhoek, also granted the 73 farmers and four others that have already been evicted the right to have their cases heard in May together with the first Zimbabwean farmer to appeal to the court to overturn his eviction order.
The five-person tribunal ordered 'that the Republic of Zimbabwe shall take no steps to evict from or interfere with peaceful residence and beneficial use' of the farms by the farmers pending the outcome of the mass hearing, set for May 28 in Windhoek.
'Although we're not satisfied with it, we will comply with it,' Zimbabwe's deputy attorney general Prince Machaya told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa after the ruling.
The SADC tribunal, established in 1992, is tasked with ensuring that the bloc's 14 members respect the SADC treaty, which calls for respect for the rule of law, among other things.
William Michael Campbell was the first white Zimbabwean farmer to successfully apply to the court last year for an urgent interdict to halt what he called the 'continued onslaught of invasions and intimidation' on his farm near Harare pending a full hearing in Zimbabwe on the legality of land seizures.
Campbell, one of only a few hundred white farmers still working the land, had been facing criminal charges in Zimbabwe for refusing to vacate his farm.
Zimbabwe's land reform programme has seen thousands of white-owned farms invaded and seized by former liberation war veterans and ruling party cronies since 2000. Few of the farmers have been compensated.
Other former European colonies in southern Africa have, so far, steered clear of Zimbabwe's brand of land reform, which has resulted in large-scale food shortages.
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