Foreword Foreword by Ben Freeth from SADC Tribunal Rights Watch As one of the hundreds of thousands of direct victims of a land reform programme that has resulted in a net desettlement of people from the land and has involved gross human rights violations, I feel it is very important to document what has happened. This document is an important contribution to the process. For a long time it has been glaringly evident that the so-called land reform programme is more an exercise in the political subjugation of the people on the commercial farms than in land reform. Alongside the controlling nature of the programme, the handing out of the farms has been done on a patronage system that simply rewards loyal supporters of the President. The evidence of the patronage system has already been established in the Campbell Case where a “chef list” was produced in court showing the extent of the patronage system in the dishing out of the farms. The programme has failed to create jobs and productivity so abysmally for the simple reason that it has not been carried out according to the rule of law. Only a small percentage of the severe criminal offences that have been committed in the land reform process have been prosecuted. None but a handful of the hundreds of thousands of people that have lost homes and livelihoods through violent evictions, were given eviction orders from a court or received any sort of compensation. As a result, the “new farmers” can not be given good title or any real property rights. No lending institution will help farmers who can not produce collateral. The cornerstone of agricultural productivity in Zimbabwe has therefore been kicked out from the foundations and the billions of dollars of capital in titled land in Zimbabwe has essentially died now that it has been vested in the President. It is the human tragedy of the so-called land reform programme that is the most distressing aspect to it. There has been much focus on what has happened to the white people in the exercise, but there has been precious little regarding the farm workers who have suffered such immense abuse. This report goes some way in redressing this grave omission and showing the true scale of the human tragedy that has resulted from this chaotic programme. Much more still needs to be done in this regard. The advent of the Global Political Agreement has done nothing to alleviate or slow down the continued making of this human tragedy. The break down of the rule of law in rural Zimbabwe seems to be something that nobody in power is prepared to grapple with or even admit, let alone try to restore. The stage is being set for much more severe violence in the future. The land mark Campbell SADC Tribunal Judgment in my father-in-law's favour in November 2008, continues to be an issue that none of the Party leaders wish to even debate in the corridors of power or in parliament. I predict that until this Judgment is recognized in Zimbabwe and the rule of law is re-established, the human tragedy on the former commercial farms, where nearly a quarter of the Zimbabwean people live, will remain depressingly acute and the people of Zimbabwe will remain abused and dependant on food aid from the western countries for many more years to come. I believe that as human rights abuses continue it is now up to us all in civil society to take forward human rights cases to the Tribunal where we fail in our own courts, and build a strong and united coalition of people who are determined not to allow Zimbabwe's culture of impunity to persist on into the next generation. i