LAWRENCE BARTLETT, Harare | Friday 7.00pm
MORE white-owned farms in Zimbabwe were invaded by thousands of independence war veterans on Friday after President Robert Mugabe appeared to give them the go-ahead, farm leaders say.
“New farms have been invaded, making a total of 142 — double the number yesterday,” said David Hasluck, director of the Commercial Farmers’ Union (CFU), which represents most of the country’s 4000 white farmers.
“We’ve told our members ‘don’t negotiate, don’t get involved, seek a safe place in your homestead’,” Hasluck said.
“There is still an escalation and we have guys locked in and an increasing activity to harass farming operations.” Mobs led by veterans of the 1970s war against white-minority rule have arrived at farms scattered throughout the country on trucks and in buses and set about allocating themselves plots and building homes.
Home Affairs Minister Dumiso Dabengwa told a news conference on Thursday that he has ordered the invaders off the farms, but national television later broadcast an interview with Mugabe in which he said they will not be moved. Dabengwa ordered the war veterans to leave the farms after the government announced that it is pressing ahead with plans to seize white-owned land without compensation.
The government has been accused of orchestrating the farm invasions to “punish” whites, whom it blames for the “no” vote in the referendum, but Dabengwa denied the charge.
Mugabe, however, told state-run television that the invasions are peaceful demonstrations by war veterans disappointed by the “no” vote, and the government will not stop them.
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