The auction of several Zimbabwe government owned properties in South Africa, seized to pay back South African farmers and a German bank, has been postponed, after the government challenged the legality of the sale.
The auction was meant to get underway on Tuesday, but the government's legal representatives over the weekend filed an urgent application to halt the sale. The North Gauteng High Court on Monday postponed the auction, saying more time was needed by all respondents in the case, which has been set down for September.
Seven properties in the Western Cape and Gauteng were seized by German development bank KFW Bankengruppe in May, over the government's failure to settle a multi-million dollar loan. The government, through the Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Co Ltd (Zisco), entered into the loan agreement with the German bank in January 1998. Repayment of the loan was then meant to be done in 16 instalments starting from May 2000. But after only four payments, the last being in 2002, Zisco stopped paying, leaving the German bank with no other option than seek other means of repayment.
Civil rights group AfriForum is locked in a similar court battle with the Zimbabwean government, representing a group of farmers who lost land as a result of Robert Mugabe's land seizures. Four other Cape Town properties were seized as part of the legal battle, and identified as Zimbabwean assets that could be auctioned off as possible compensation for the farmers. A 2008 regional ruling, declaring the land 'reform' program as 'unlawful' has been ignored and legally dismissed in Zimbabwe, leaving farmers with no choice but to seek justice elsewhere. Farmers approached AfriForum to have that same ruling, made by the human rights court of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), registered in South Africa.
Judge Garth Rabie in February ruled in favour of the farmers, stating that the SADC Tribunal ruling, including a later order to pay costs to the farmers, should be honoured. AfriForum has since been seeking what Zimbabwean assets can be attached to settle these costs and they identified four properties in Cape Town.
AfriForum's legal representative, Willie Spies, explained that the court's decision on Monday to postpone the sale of the Zimbabwean properties, affects their case too. He explained that the Zimbabwe government is arguing that all the properties are protected by diplomatic immunity and cannot be auctioned.
"Many of the properties are being used for commercial purposes and are not therefore protected by diplomatic immunity," Spies said. "The Zimbabwe government is abusing court proceedings and it means Zimbabwe has developed into a rogue state."
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For goodness sake - what does a zimbabwean have to do to get a fair deal? How much more can a white Zimbabwean take? First its the farm, now its the businesses, next will be how many houses you own. Give the white farmer a break - he has lost absolutely everything he has worked for.
Doris;
The primary "fair deal" should be to black Zimbabweans who were dispossessed, at gun point, by barbaric Boers who invaded our land in 1890. The farms that these people 'owned' were not theirs. They just parceled to each other large swath of African land and gave themselves title to property that did not belong to them simply because they were cruel and heartless barbarians facing unarmed, innocent, and peace-loving and God-fearing Africans who did not want to spill human blood.
What did they do? They slaughtered our forefathers (refer to Chimurenga One that saw the hanging of Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi for resisting invasion and colonization) and took everything (underline EVERYTHING) from them and left them with absolutely nothing. Our forefathers had to start from zero after working for hundreds of thousands of years to possess what they had at the time of invasion.
Not even what Boers had no use for was spared - they took our cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, precious minerals, food in our granaries, dogs, cats and what have you. They did not stop there; they then destroyed our homes and drove us, at gun point, into mountains, rocky areas, arid and semi-arid lands and into barren and desert areas that are not suitable for any kind of cultivation at all.
They did not end there; they then imposed what they called "hut tax" which no one could pay without working (literally enslaving us) for evil and barbaric Boers. Our ancestors and we of this generation were, from then on; colonized, oppressed, exploited, enslaved, subjugated, and were brutally, evilly and satanically exterminated for the next 100 years until we freed ourselves in 1980.
This is why today, you (Doris) as a descendant of oppressors of the African people, have the guts or have the audacity to say; "he (the Boer) has lost absolutely everything he has worked for" because you do not know or choose not to know where it all started.
When Cecil John Rhodes (the first Boer to land on Zim soil) invaded our land he did not come with "farms, businesses or houses" from Europe. All this is ill-gotten wealth from our country and through exploiting and enslaving black people and using looted Zimbabwean resources that they still possess up to this day.
If you refuse to see such glaring truths then you are not worth discussing the Zimbabweans issues with. You are not different from Tony Blair and George Bush and their predecessors Gordon Brown and David Cameron, and Barak Obama respectively - who have said land should first go back to invaders for them to talk to us. We have said that they can GO HAND and GO TO HELL if they think we will EVER compromise!!! We have taken our land back and its final. LAND WILL NEVER EVER REVERT!!!
Next it is the businesses that are owned by foreigners and lastly we will destroy everything associated with and that reminds us of the colonial past - The Mosi-a-Tunya should assume its real name and not 'Vic Falls' as if we are subjects of the white man's Queen; Rhodes' bones and those of all those who invaded our land that are being celebrated today should be removed from our soils and taken to museums; our schools should teach all subjects in indigenous languages so that we totally and completely free our selves, culturally and mentally, from these evil people.
When that is done, we know and can safely say we (will) have achieved 100% EMPOWERMENT and TOTAL INDEPENDENCE.
Hey TakKi, since you seem to want to return to a prehistoric past, why is it that you are on these boards using "western" technology, also known as the computer, to communicate with others? Perhaps you should get out your drums and forgo the white man's method of communicating. And go back to eating weeds and roots. Oh sorry, your already doing that because the country can't afford any better since Maggot killed the economy. Maybe you should start wearing leaves instead of clothing and forgo electricity, since it was discovered by a white guy? I guess that by your standards if you're not living in a thatched hut then you're not a true African.
Why don't you tell us exactly when your family aquired the land that the Boers took away? Which land belonged to your great great grandfather when the Boers came? Do you know? Can you tell us the tribe that your tribe originally stole it from? Go all the way back and you'll find that no one has a right to claim the land exclusively. We've all got to share it during the little time we have here on earth.
DL, talking about technology; before you mention technologies, talk about history and how histories have been manipulated and controlled for their (White) race good: Who invented the traffic light? who was the first person that did heart surgery? Who invented peanut butter ?? Who invented or introduce civilization into the world?? Do you want me to continue. When wrongs are done to a race; we must accepted then and continue going with on our self conscious instead of being in denial and lies to the rest of the world as if everyones are stupid. So, those wrongs that they did to the whole Africans was drastically and barbarically inhumane. If any black man do one single things to a white man in any where in Africa, the whole world will know about; but when the black men wants to take actions of what had happened to them, we continue with our lies to block it so that our (white race) can't be seeing as a disgrace to the world. How long should a dirty and secretive ways should be keep from the light ?? How long; and as if others do not know. Africa, wake - up and stop support the lies and manipulations by our enemies.
DL, you should know that this twat Takunyaus Ndebvuaraurus is long extinct ,, He died out with his fellow Tyransaurus Rex cousins a long time ago at the dawn of the age. He keeps on bringing up things that are long dead including himself blaming the meteorite collision to cause him to be extinct and boy does he stink. The Ndevusasaurus can't understand the rule of rule through the courts and just wants to wreak destruction upon everything that comes into his path. In fact his name is now Twatasaurus.
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