PHILIP PANK & MANOAH ESIPISU, Harare | Tuesday 1.30pm.
TWO supporters of Zimbabwe’s political opposition have been killed by followers of President Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party, opposition leaders said on Tuesday.
Nomore Sibanda, a spokesman for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said one man was beaten to death in Shamva, about 80km northeast of Harare, while the other was killed in the capital. Both died on Monday.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai said the first victim was in a group attacked in a shopping area of Shamva by a roving gang claiming to support ZANU-PF.
In the same incident a local MDC leader, David Nhaurwa, was struck on the head with an axe. Others were also hurt.
Meanwhile, politicians resumed efforts to reach a peaceful settlement to Zimbabwe’s violent land crisis as white farmers gathered in Harare for a memorial service in honour of a murdered colleague.
A high-level delegation from the Zimbabwean government led by Local Government Minister John Nkomo is due to leave for London for talks with British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook on Thursday.
The negotiations come against a backdrop of bloody violence and intimidation of workers in rural Zimbabwe.
At least four farms were invaded by violent mobs in an agricultural region east of the capital on Monday.
One farm’s tobacco crop was burned, its workers torched and beaten with sticks and chains. The farm house was petrol bombed.
Land was also set on fire, prompting reports that landless workers were queuing to pay as little as $10 for a patch of requisitioned property.
The violence has claimed the lives of two white farm-owners and several black supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) that is expected to give President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party a run for its money in forthcoming elections.
Farmers said that the violence had eased on Tuesday. Several farms in the worst-hit area were vacated by their owners, who gathered in the capital for a memorial service for the first farmer killed in the current spate of attacks.
David Stevens was shot dead at pointblank range on April 15 by squatters who had occupied his farm in the Virginia tobacco-growing region east of Harare.
The United States on Monday criticised Mugabe’s failure to ease the violence.
”Democracy can only develop in a climate of political tolerance, so we’re extremely disturbed by the fact that the Zimbabwe government still has not accepted its responsibility to uphold the law for all Zimbabweans,” State Department spokesman James Rubin said. — AFP, Reuters
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