25 led by the Supreme Court then sent an open letter to the President requesting him to reaffirm that the rule of law would be adhered to in Zimbabwe. The President refused and instead suggested in a televised address that the judges who had signed this letter had committed “an outrageous and deliberate act of impudence” and they should resign if they wished to enter politics. In Parliament he said: “We will respect judges where the judgments are true judgments. We do not expect that judges will use subjectivity in interpreting the law. We expect judges to be objective. We may not understand them in some cases but when a judge sits alone in his house or with his wife and says ‘this one is guilty of contempt’ that judgment should never be obeyed. I am not saying this because we would want to defy judges. In fact we have increased their salaries recently. But if they are not objective, don’t blame us when we defy them.” (Source: The Herald 27 July 2002) After the land invasions began in 2000 he repeatedly said the government would ignore court judgments declaring illegal any aspects of land seizures of white owned farms. Addressing the ZANU PF Central Committee he warned the judges that they would not be allowed to “go against our quest for full sovereignty.” He said the “land question is a deep political question that no judge can hope to solve through laws of trespass or court orders.” He went on: “Let it be known that the courts in independent Zimbabwe do belong to the people for whose convenience and protection they were set up in the first instance.” (Sources: Business Day (SA) 14 December 2000 and Houston Chronicle 15 December 2000) Whites, white farmers, Jews and homosexuals Note. It is an offence under s 6 of the Prevention of Discrimination Act to make any statements reasonably likely to encourage discrimination against any class of persons on grounds of race or ethnic origin. Statements by Robert Mugabe In 1992, he said that white farmers are “hard-hearted, you would think they were Jews.” In April 2000, he said whites had declared themselves enemies of the country by rejecting a clause in the draft constitution to enable government to acquire land for resettlement. “Until the whites transform positively and really show that they are allies who are prepared to live side by side with us, we will consider them as enemies” (Source: The Chronicle, 19 April 2000.) Their words condemn them: The language of violence, intolerance and despotism in Zimbabwe.