Windhoek - A tribunal of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on Friday declared the Zimbabwean government in breach of a court ruing ordering it to halt white-owned farm invasions and asked Zimbabwe's neighbours to take action.

The tribunal of the 15-nation trade bloc, which is based in the Namibian capital Windhoek, last year ordered the then government of President Robert Mugabe to stop evicting or interfering with 77 white farmers.

The farmers had challenged their eviction under Mugabe's controversial land reform programme, which has seen thousands of white farmers and farmworkers thrown off the land since 2000 and handed to Mugabe supporters.

Despite the ruling, authorities in Zimbabwe have continued their harassment of farmers William Michael Campbell and others had expected the Zimbabwean government to comply with the orders.

Instead, as stated in the affidavits submitted by Campbell and his son-in-law Ben Freeth, the authorities have continued their harassment of farmers and workers, leading them to return to the court to seek protection.

Finding the Zimbabwean government "in breach and contempt" of last year's ruling, on the basis of statements by government officials and the continued "invasions and harassment", the tribunal ordered that the case be reported to the next SADC summit for action.

Mugabe himself has described the ruling as "absolute nonsense."

The court also ordered costs pursuant to the ruling.

Freeth said was pleased with the outcome of the appeal saying: "We see the house of justice being built and we don't have much of that in Zimbabwe, so we are very very pleased."

Deon Theron of the Zimbabwean Commercial Farmers' Union expressed satisfaction with the ruling while maintaining a "wait-and-see" whether SADC was going to "take appropriate action."

The Zimbabwean farmers had originally turned to the SADC tribunal after being denied the right to challenge their evictions in Zimbabwe.

The tribunal had found the Zimbabwean government to be in breach of its obligations to the SADC founding treaty regarding the rights of the farmers to defend their rights in court.

Zimbabwe now has a new government that includes former opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai as prime minister. Tsvangirai has downplayed a new spate of violent land invasions, saying the accounts are "overblown." (dpa)