OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Sunday 4.45pm
ARMED war veterans invaded more white-owned farms in Zimbabwe at the weekend after President Robert Mugabe gave them the go-ahead, a farming leader said on Sunday. “It’s continuing to escalate,” Commercial Farmers’ Union president Tim Henwood said.
More than 400 farms have been invaded in the past couple of weeks by thousands of squatters led by veterans of Zimbabwe’s independence war, who say they are reclaiming land stolen by white colonialists.
Mugabe said on Friday that the invaders could remain on the farms. “We want the whites to learn that the land belongs to Zimbabweans,” he was quoted as saying by the Herald newspaper.
Mugabe’s statement is a direct contradiction of assurances given to farmers by his ministers and police, who said the squatters will be evicted. CFU director David Hasluck said that Mugabe’s reported remarks are “unhelpful and will lead to ongoing confusion insofar as the minister’s orders are concerned, where he has declined to apply the laws of the country.”
The CFU, which represents most of Zimbabwe’s 4000 white farmers, has described the situation as “complete anarchy”, and appealed repeatedly for Mugabe to restore law and order.
Critics accuse the government itself of orchestrating the farm invasions to “punish” whites, whom it blames for the rejection of a new draft constitution in a referendum last month. The new constitution would have given the government the power to seize white-owned land without paying for it. — AFP
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