Zimbabwe pulls out of SADC tribunal

THE government of Zimbabwe dropped a bombshell by announcing on Wednesday that it was pulling out of the Windhoek-based Tribunal of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), claiming the regional court has not been properly constituted and that the country will no longer take part in, or respect, any decisions from the Tribunal.

The announcement puts the 15-member state regional bloc in a tight spot as the annual SADC summit for heads of state takes place in Kinshasa, DRC, next Monday, where this will have to be discussed.So far, member states have been lenient with Zimbabwe over the past few years with the strategy of ‘quiet diplomacy’.Approached for comment, an official at the Tribunal office in Windhoek told The Namibian yesterday that the Registrar, Justice Charles Mkandawire, and Tribunal President, Justice Luis Mondlane, had already left for Kinshasa to attend the technical meetings preceding the SADC summit.The withdrawal of Zimbabwe from the SADC jurisdiction is a major blow to 79 white commercial farmers in that country who had won their cases before the Tribunal, blocking the Zimbabwean government from acquiring their farms. The government now says any decisions that the Tribunal may have made, or may make in future, about Zimbabwe are null and void.The state controlled Herald newspaper carried a report on Wednesday saying: ‘Zimbabwe has formally withdrawn from any legal proceedings involving the SADC Tribunal until the establishment of the court is ratified by at least two-thirds of the bloc’s membership as per the requirements of rules and procedures governing the regional grouping.’The paper quoted Zimbabwean Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa who last month said: ‘The court did not exist by law and as such Zimbabwe would not appear before it anymore, and neither would Government be bound by any decisions already made or future ones emanating from there.’According to Agence France Presse (AFP) news agency, it is widely believed the only reason Zimbabwe is pulling out is because it did not like the Tribunal’s judgements. Legal experts believe Zimbabwe cannot pull out of the SADC Tribunal without pulling out of the SADC treaty which created the 15-member regional bloc.The announcement coincided with the news that the farmhouses of two of the farmers who had obtained relief from the Tribunal last year have been burnt to the ground since last weekend.On Sunday, the farmhouse, workers’ homes and an on-site factory were destroyed on the farm Mount Carmel of Ben Freeth.On Wednesday, his father-in-law Mike Campbell’s home just two kilometres away was also razed to the ground. Surprisingly, the MDC is conspicuous in its silence. Observers say this is the downside of the inclusive government in Zimbabwe, where the MDC is compromised and painted with the brush of complicity. The MDC has been coming under heavy criticism for not stating its true position on the latest developments on the farms.The Tribunal was established in 1992 as one of the institutions of SADC. But the Summit of Heads of State, which is the supreme policy institution of SADC, only appointed the members of the Tribunal in August 2005. The inauguration of the Tribunal and the swearing-in of the members took place on November 18 2005 in Windhoek. – Additional reporting by AFP