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.
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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.
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