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Monash University Law Chambers, Castan Centre for Human Rights Law Lecture

Good evening everyone. It’s very heart-warming to see the magnificent turn out for a country which, after all, is located in the forgotten continent and a country that doesn’t have any oil or anything else like that to attract the attention of the international community. I would like to speak to you tonight about the current human rights situation in Zimbabwe and the erosion of the rule of law that has taken place in Zimbabwe since the year 2000.

In addressing this topic I am aware that in the course of the last five years many Australians have been focused on Zimbabwe but sadly often for the wrong reasons. The debate appears to turn around whether or not the Australian cricket team should tour Zimbabwe or whether that tour should be reciprocated and much of the human rights focus has been centred on the plight of white commercial farmers who have been evicted from their farms. Sadly I think that focus is itself an indictment of the media and perhaps of politicians not just in Australia but elsewhere because there is this preoccupation on those issues. But in reality the human rights situation in Zimbabwe deals with far more serious issues than cricket. The focus of human rights organisations should be on issues that involve, in my view, crimes against humanity and in the early 1980’s genocide.

Sunday Mail

UNCOLONISED - With Lowani Ndlovu

The fact that over the last three or so months following the last Cabinet reshuffle in March the historic fast-track land reform programme that was started in 2000 has been mired in bureaucratic controversies is reason for great concern among the uncolonised and the time has come to go back on track to finish the unfinished business by ensuring that every inch of our soil is in the hands of the indigenous black majority without fearing the machinations of neocols and their running dogs.

If the truth be told without fear or favour, it is now common cause that the splitting of the then Ministry of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement into the new Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on the one hand and the Ministry of Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement on the other hand has resulted in the creation of unprecedented confusion around the whole land reform exercise and opened up huge doors and windows for Rhodies and their puppet associates to come in and cause havoc.

Between March and May, nothing appeared to be happening and many on the waiting list for allocation of A2 plots or resettlement under the A1 scheme raised questions about the standstill, wondering what was happening, perplexed by the silence and inaction by the new Ministry of Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement.

Not only was there no inaction by way of new allocations and new resettlements but there was also silence regarding the gazetting of new land which meant that there was no acquisition of new land from Rhodies, many of whom still cling on to illegally acquired land.