Zimbabwe claims immunity against land reform prose...

Zimbabwe claims immunity against land reform prosecution

Zim Now Writer

Zimbabwe has urged a Washington, D.C., federal judge to deny a German and Swiss family's allegedly premature bid to enforce a $277 million arbitration award that stems from the land reform citing immunity.

Bernhard von Pezold and his family, who are dual Swiss and German nationals enlisted the help of a US federal court in Washington DC to enforce a US$277 million arbitral award against Zimbabwe.

The award issued on 28 July 2015 by a tribunal at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes ordered Zimbabwe to return the 78 275 hectares seized in 2005 saying the farmland was covered under a Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement.

The claim is for loss of land and claims including amount including US$1m in "moral damages" for the government's refusal to provide the family with police protection against violent takeover.

Decades after independence and white farmers refusing to deal in good faith to return land to the blacks as agreed in the Lancaster Agreement, lland reform was triggered by Chief Svosve who led his people to reclaim their ancestral land from a white farmer.

A nationwide swell that degenerated into violent takeover with about 12 white farmers killed as they resisted eviction from the land.

Zimbabwe is currently battling to raise US$3,5 billion to compensate white farmers who lost title during the land reform.

Many Zimbabweans have spoken against the compensation of white farmers saying their right to the land is based on colonialism whereby locals were forcibly evicted from their land and title unilaterally awarded to whites.

Thousands of locals who resisted forced eviction and colonialism were killed in incidents that include the dynamiting of people in caves and the murder of chiefs.