SUSAN NJANJI, Harare | Wednesday 5.15pm.
THE Zimbabwe government has denied claims by war veterans’ leader Chenjerai Hitler Hunzvi that the authorities have begun distributing 187 farms from whites to landless blacks.
Presidential spokesman George Charamba said that war veterans, who have been leading a campaign of white farm occupations in Zimbabwe, have merely identified 187 farms to be handed over to the government.
5.00pm.
THE Zimbabwe government has begun the redistribution of 187 white-owned farms to thousands of landless blacks, independence war veterans’ leader Chenjerai Hitler Hunzvi claimed on Wednesday afternoon.
Hunzvi, a member of Zimbabwe’s land acquisition committee, told journalists in a telephone interview that the land redistribution exercise kicked off in the vast Mashonaland West province in the north of the country.
No official confirmation could immediately be obtained. However the white-led Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), which also sits on the committee, denied knowledge of the exercise.
“We have started redistributing land today in Mashonaland west province,” Hunzvi said when asked what progress the committee had made since its inception on May 12.
He said 187 farms had been handed out to thousands of families, but could not immediately say how many hectares were involved.
Nick Swanepoel, of the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) and a member of the committee, said he was unaware of the exercise.
Land reform in Zimbabwe has been at the centre of a political crisis sparked in February when landless blacks led by liberation war veterans began invading some 1500 white-owned commercial farms here.
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