Fifteen white Zimbabwe farmers have been charged with defying a government ban on farming, the first move against this community since the ban came into force last week, a farming union representative said Thursday.
The representative, Jenni Williams of the Commercial Farmers Union said that over the last 24 hours 15 sugar farmers in Chiredzi, southern Zimbabwe had been ordered to make warned and cautioned statements at their local police station.
She said they had been charged with under section eight of the country’s controversial Land Acquisition Act, ”for interfering with the resettlement programme”.
Under the law, some 2 900 farmers who are issued with section eight orders have to stop farming operations and are given 45 days to vacate their properties.
The CFU says a ”large number” of the 2 900 affected farmers could not wind up their farming operations in time had defied the farming ban.
The Zimbabwe government has slammed white farmers who have defied the orders saying they were ”unrepentant racists and fascists”.
The CFU’s Williams said that the activities of the 15 sugar farmers did not constitute defiance. ”They have a sugar crop in the ground that needs to be harvested,” she said.
She said the 15 were not in police custody but had just been told by the police and agricultural ministry officials to submit their statements and appear before a magistrate. Eleven of them have so far submitted their statements, she said. – Sapa