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Zimbabwe strips whites of ability to challenge land seizures
• U.S. plans sanctions on Mugabe, others
Zimbabwe's government has annulled more than 4,000 white farmers' challenges to a mass eviction campaign, following changes to the constitution to end freehold real estate title and owners' rights to appeal against seizure, according to a newspaper report.
The development came as the United States indicated plans to slap tough travel sanctions on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, members of his government and their extended families as a sign of its growing impatience with Zimbabwe, whose relations with the West are at an all-time low because of land seizures and human rights abuses.
Mutsonziwa said around 4,000 cases were pending before the Administrative Court and the passing of the Constitutional Amendment Act into law meant they were "all being nullified."
The constitutional overhaul strips landowners of their right to appeal expropriation of their property by the state and declares all real estate is now on a 99-year lease from the government.
Mutsonziwa, who said the government "wants all the cases put to rest," plans to seek a legal order Monday making farmers responsible for costs they incurred trying to resist eviction.
President Robert Mugabe, 81, in power since 1980 independence from Britain, blamed whites for loss of a February 2000 constitutional referendum and ordered governing party militants to seize 5,000 commercial farms, covering 17 percent of the country.
He said they had been stolen from blacks when whites colonized the country, formerly known as Rhodesia, in 1890. Since 2000, agricultural output and exports have crashed, leaving 4 million Zimbabweans in urgent need of famine relief.
On September 8, Mugabe said 63 percent of Zimbabweans were living in poverty, with 48 percent unable to afford even basic food and necessities.
Blaming black marketeers and informal street traders for shortages and soaring prices, the government launched a two-month blitz earlier this year, code named "Operation Murambatsvina" (drive out filth), destroying tens of thousands of houses, prefabricated cabins and shacks.
Last week, Human Rights Watch said the operation had violated the rights of hundreds of thousands of Zimbabwe's citizens and it demanded those responsible be brought to justice.
Meanwhile, the United States says it plans to slap tough travel sanctions on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, members of his government and their extended families
A senior U.S. official said at the weekend that the move is aimed at further isolating Mugabe and is a sign of growing U.S. impatience with Zimbabwe, whose relations with the West are at an all-time low because of human rights abuses.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer said the U.S. Treasury was putting the final touches to an order that would bar Mugabe, his senior officials and their families from visiting the United States.
Travel visas for study purposes would also be affected.
"We are continuing to try to call attention to the human rights abuses, that the last election was not fair and that there was not a level playing field there," Frazer, a former U.S. ambassador to South Africa, said on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
Mugabe has been at the gathering, where he spoke earlier this week.
Last month, Washington froze the U.S. assets of 26 Zimbabwean farms and businesses it said were controlled by key members of Mugabe's government, accusing them of undercutting democracy.
"All the challenges are now useless and there is only need to formally withdraw the issues before the courts," the chief law officer in the attorney general's office, Nelson Mutsonziwa, was quoted as saying in the state-owned Sunday Mail.
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