PETALING JAYA (March 17, 2010): A company co-owned by Malaysians is involved in a legal battle over land in Zimbabwe which was seized by a retired military officer.

The Zimbabwe government had seized land from white farmers under its land reform policies. Then parcels of land were handed out to locals. One of the recipients was Matanuska Pvt Ltd – co-owned by a Malaysian entity, Rainbow Century Sdn Bhd and Dutch company Route Toute BV, which grew bananas for export on an 80ha farm called Fangundu.

The allocation of land located in Burma Valley in the eastern Manicaland province was given to the company under the Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (Bippa) signed between Harare and Kuala Lumpur in 2008.

However, in December the land was seized by retired Major General Edzai Chimonyo, who is Zimbabwe’s ambassador to Tanzania. He claims that the farm was allocated to him in 2006 under President Robert Mugabe's controversial land reform programme where land belonging to whites was seized by the government to be given to landless black citizens.

The matter is now before the courts in Harare.

Last week, the Malaysian government got into the act with its charge de affairs in Harare Mohamad Nizan Mohamad meeting vice-president John Nkomo, who promised to take the matter up with Mugabe.

However, a government official told The Zimbabwe Times that it may be too late to try diplomatic channels. "The VP may have promised but his hands are tied because this case is before the courts, the Supreme Court, for that matter.

"These people should have taken this route from the start because to stop it now can be difficult and can create some problems," said the foreign affairs official.

theSun has learnt that attempts are being made to get Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, a close friend of Mugabe, to intervene if all else fails. However, Mahathir’s aides are in the dark as the former premier is abroad. "As far as we know, no one has approached us but we have to wait till Tun returns," said an aide.

A Wisma Putra official said Malaysia will continue using diplomatic avenues to assist the company. "We are confident of a positive outcome due to our good bilateral relationship with Zimbabwe," he said.

Malaysia has signed about 10 BIPPAs with Zimbabwe.

Barred from most Western countries, Mugabe regards Malaysia as his second home spending a lot of time here on holiday with his family as well as for medical treatment.

He had even talked about making Zimbabwe the Malaysia of southern Africa.

About 4,000 colonial white farmers have lost their property through these often violent seizures under the land reform programme. There have been accusations that seized were not given to the landless citizens the programme was meant for.

Matanuska does not have a title to the land and in January its directors Johannes Makurumidze and Richard Chiwandire were threatened with arrests for operating the farm without an offer letter. -- theSun