A white farmer in Zimbabwe allegedly sprayed tear gas at a ruling party lawmaker who took over part of his farm under the country’s controversial land reforms, the Sunday Mail said.
Isaac Mackenzie, an MP of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union -Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) for the northern Kariba constituency, told the paper that he had gone to survey a plot allocated to him by the government at Sapi Valley Farm on Friday when the owner sprayed tear gas at him.
According to Mackenzie, farmer Cregg Welsey ordered his security men to handcuff the legislator along with his friend while farm workers hurled stones at the pair.
The incident was reported to the police, but the police representative could not be reached comment on Sunday.
The farm is among the hundreds of white-owned properties earmarked for compulsory acquisition by government in a bid to correct colonial land ownership imbalances which left whites, who make up less than one percent of the population, owning more than 70% of the country’s prime farmland. – Sapa-AFP