GRIFFIN SHEA, Harare | Thursday
ZIMBABWES white farmers have banded together and pledged to work with the government to resolve the nation’s land reform crisis, after an apparent split within their ranks over the violence-wracked scheme.
The farmers reaffirmed their support for their union’s current leadership, expressed their “absolute commitment” to negotiating with the government, and pledged to work to find a solution to the land reform crisis.
The special Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) congress came after more than a year of bloodshed in Zimbabwe’s countryside linked to the forcible invasions of hundreds of white-owned farms by self-styled veterans of the nation’s liberation war.
More than 34 people died in political violence last year in Zimbabwe, while thousands more were beaten, raped or intimidated.
In hopes of ending the violence, former CFU president Nick Swanepoel ran advertisements in local papers last week urging farmers to drop all opposition to the scheme to resettle poor blacks on five million hectares of white-owned land.
His plan called for dropping all legal action against the government and immediately moving 20_000 families on to plots of two to five hectares each, providing them with free tillage, fertilizer and seeds.
He has also suggested changing the CFU’s name and voting in a black president to lead the group.
After their meeting, the CFU remained silent about its new proposals for ending the crisis, but adopted none of Swanepoel’s recommendations publicly.
Farming officials declined to elaborate on the new proposals, but participants in the meeting said they were reluctant to adopt all of Swanepoel’s plan, especially his call for abandoning their legal struggle.
“We farmers are not willing to waive our legal rights on the hopes of getting better relations with the government,” one farmer said. “We believe that our legal rights are the strongest ground we can stand on.”
The farmers have already won a Supreme Court ruling declaring Mugabe’s land reform plan unconstitutional and ordering the squatters’ eviction.
But rather than following the court’s order, Mugabe’s government has heaped pressure on the judges who handed down the decision and cracked down on the independent press.
Despite the union’s statement in favour of dialogue, the government has already said it is not willing to negotiate with the farmers. – AFP
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