Harare | Monday
A HIGH Court judge on Monday has granted conditional bail to 21 white farmers arrested two weeks ago on charges of inciting violence in northern Zimbabwe.
Judge Rita Makarau granted the farmers bail of 100 000 Zimbabwe dollars (about 1 800 US), but said that 20 of the farmers could not return to Mashonaland West province for four weeks.
Makarau said by preventing the farmers from returning home, she hoped to avoid another outbreak of violence in the region. One farmer is allowed to return to his home to receive medical treatment.
The judge also ordered the farmers to surrender their passports and other travel documents and ordered them not to interfere with any state witnesses in their case.
The farmers’ arrest outside Chinhoyi two weeks ago sparked a rampage by violent mobs through a large swath of farmland in Mashonaland West.
The violence has now subsided, but Makarau said she considered there to be “a high likelihood of public violence … if the appellants are returned to the community.”
The decision overturned a ruling by a magistrate’s court in the northern town of Chinhoyi, which had denied bail to the farmers.
Prosecutors said they would not appeal Makarau’s decision.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s minister for lands told white farmers to immediately leave their property to make way for black settlers, in an interview with the state-run Sunday Mail.
“Commercial farmers have refused the concept of co-existence, and some of them have even gone on to beat up resettled farmers. That is unacceptable and we now require all those in areas gazetted for resettlement to pave way for settlers,” Joseph Made told the paper.
The Zimbabwe government has gazetted 5 327 white-owned farms totalling 9,5-million hectares for seizure, marking more than 90% of all white-owned land.
Made’s statement came after last week’s upsurge in violence on farms around the northern town of Chinhoyi, where violent mobs ransacked about 50 white-owned farms.
White farmers have won a Supreme Court ruling that declared the government’s resettlement scheme unconstitutional and that ordered police to evict thousands of pro-government militants who have forcibly occupied white farms since February 2000.
President Robert Mugabe’s government has ignored the ruling and pushed ahead with his scheme, which aims to redress inequities in land ownership left from the white-minority colonial government.
The farm violence has had a strong political colouring, closely tied to the government’s crackdown on dissent ahead of presidential elections due in April.
Mugabe is expected to face his toughest challenge ever from Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the two-year-old Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). – AFP