The article below refers. When do we see Zimbabwe renouncing its SADC membership to join COMESA?

Harare wants farm seizure case postponed
by Simplicious Chirinda Wednesday 19 March 2008

HARARE – Zimbabwe’s government has asked a regional Tribunal to postpone a case in which a white farmer is contesting seizure of his property until after elections next week, ZimOnline has learnt.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal, which last December temporarily barred Harare from seizing the farmer’s property, had set down the matter for hearing on March 26, just three days before Zimbabwe’s presidential and general elections.

One of the white farmer’s lawyers, David Drury said the government had written to have the case shifted because of the elections on March 29.

Drury said: "The government argues that it is faced with a tricky situation where it has to deal with elections and it appears as if the tribunal will consider its case but we are saying that before the date was set we agreed both of us on the date and the tribunal then simply announced it.

“At the time the government knew that it had elections coming but it now says its best representatives will be involved with elections.”

The farmer, Michael Campbell, wants the SADC court to find Harare in breach of its obligations as a member of the regional bloc after it signed into law Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment No.17 two years ago.

The amendment allows the government to seize white farmland - without compensation - for redistribution to landless blacks and bars courts from hearing appeals from dispossessed white farmers.

The white farmer has also asked the Tribunal to declare Zimbabwe’s land reforms racist and illegal under the SADC Treaty, adding that Article 6 of the Treaty bars member states from discriminating against any person on the grounds of gender, religion, race, ethnic origin and culture.

A ruling declaring land reform illegal would have far reaching consequences for Mugabe’s government, opening the floodgates to hundreds of claims of damages by dispossessed white farmers.

Such a ruling could also set the Harare government on a collision course with its SADC allies particularly if it – as it has always done with court rulings against its land reforms – refuses to abide by an unfavourable Tribunal judgment.

Farm seizures are blamed for plunging Zimbabwe into severe food shortages after the government displaced established white commercial farmers and replaced them with either incompetent or inadequately funded black farmers. - ZimOnline