CRIS CHINAKA, Harare | Wednesday
AT least 60 black Zimbabwean militants besieged a white farmer in his home on Tuesday as self-styled war veterans laid claim to white-owned land reportedly earmarked for transfer this month to blacks.
Peter Goosen was barricaded at his farm in the Nyamandlovu area, outside the southern city of Bulawayo, after militants armed with knives and spears moved onto his property, local farmers said.
”They are demanding that he must leave so they can settle there,” Goosen’s neighbour Peter Johnstone said.
Chris Jarreth, chairman of the Nyamandlovu Farmers’ Association, said the group was in radio contact with Goosen and had not been harmed.
”We are in some kind of talks to resolve this issue,” he said. ”They want him out, but he does not want to leave.”
The latest scramble for land came after 21 white farmers northwest of Harare were granted bail on Monday after being kept in jail for two weeks on charges of inciting violence.
The farmers were however not released on Tuesday, apparently due to administrative hitches. The farmers had clashed with pro-government militants occupying their properties in the northwestern town of Chinhoyi. The militants retaliated by burning and looting property.
A lawyer for the farmers said the High Court in Harare had signed their release warrants in the afternoon, but prison officials in Chinhoyi said they would not free the men until the prison had received the documents.
Since farm invasions began in February 2000, nine white farmers have been killed and scores of farm workers injured in the accompanying violence.
The land seizure campaign, criticised by Western including the United States and Britain, has depressed foreign investor sentiment towards southern Africa.
War veterans and Zanu-PF supporters in Victoria Falls on Tuesday closed the border post between Zimbabwe and Zambia for more than an hour to prevent travellers from entering Zimbabwe.
The war veterans went on a rampage in the morning, closing down supermarkets and wholesale shops in the town.
Then they went to the border post and ordered customs officers to close it.
Meanwhile, at least 7 000 heads of cattle are to be destroyed in an effort to contain an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease blamed on land invaders in Zimbabwe, state media said Wednesday. The Herald quoted an unnamed government veterinary officer saying the cattle would be slaughtered in the southwestern Matabeleland Province, where the disease broke out last week.
The outbreak began after occupiers planning to resettle on white-owned ranches took down perimeter fences, leaving cattle to mingle with wild animals, according to the independent Daily News and farming officials.
”All affected properties have been quarantined and vaccination programmes have commenced,” said the Cattle Producers Association, a section of the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) representing mainly white farmers.
Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement Minister Joseph Made told state television that more vaccines had been imported and airlifted from Namibia to help deal with the outbreak.
Experts say the cattle were likely to have been infected by buffaloes.
”The industry has made a very strong appeal to the government … to clamp down on the illegal movement of cattle that is occurring countrywide … to prevent the spread of foot-and-mouth disease,” the Cattle Producers Association statement said.
Meanwhile, the government has halted beef exports since the outbreak was detected August 16 at a farm outside Zimbabwe’s second city of Bulawayo.
Zimbabwe exports beef to the EU, South Africa and other markets in Africa and Asia. Annual exports total more than $86-million. – Reuters, AFP, The Daily News
21