Hundreds of white farmers were spending a nervous weekend in defiance of government eviction orders, ahead of a keynote speech in which President Robert Mugabe is expected to reiterate his hard line on land distribution.
On Saturday the government warned ”arrogant” white farmers to leave their land, but hundreds remained on their farms a day after the expiry of the Thursday midnight deadline to vacate.
But an annual traditional address by President Robert Mugabe, due to be delivered on Monday, could give signals as to how the government intends to proceed in the light of the defiance shown by some farmers.
Few were expecting the Zimbabwean leader to alter his hardline stance against the white farmers. Mugabe gives a speech every August to commemorate liberation war heroes who died during and after the 1970s war of independence from Britain.
President Mugabe’s two-year land reform campaign has attracted sharp international criticism because of its often violent nature.
In a statement received on Saturday, the US government said that while it recognised the need for genuine land reform in Zimbabwe and would support a rational and equitable programme, ”regrettably, the current campaign of forced expulsions and violent property seizures takes Zimbabwe in the opposition direction”.
”Credible reports of senior political and security figures assuming ownership of expropriated commercial farms further reveals the cynicism of Mugabe’s so-called land reform programme,” said Philip Reeker, a US State Department representative.
”At a time when six million Zimbabweans are without adequate food supplies, the government of Zimbabwe’s eviction of commercial farmers and thousands of farm workers is a reckless and reprehensible act,” he added.
The food shortages faced by millions in the southern African country are attributed to drought and the disruption of farming operations caused by the land reform programme.
Farmers who have stayed on their farms, risking ejection, have appealed to the government to be able to stay because they have crops planted in the ground.
Those farmers remaining were reported by their union to be awaiting responses to individual appeals against the eviction orders instituted under Mugabe’s controversial land reform scheme to take land from whites and re-distribute it to landless black Zimbabweans.
Amid confusion over precisely how many farmers had been ordered to vacate their lands, the government said it had served 1 600 eviction notices, while farming officials estimated that about 2 900 farmers were under orders to vacate their property by midnight on Thursday.
The state-owned Herald newspaper quoted acting Lands Minister, Ignatius Chombo, as saying he was happy that 400 farmers so far had complied with the eviction orders.
”We don’t not know where the farmers are getting the impression that they all have to cease operations this week,” said Chombo.
But he dismissed the excuses of those remaining and called the farmers ”an arrogant lot”.
”The commercial farmers are a racist lot that want privilege for themselves only. Time has come,” Chombo said.
”All the excuses by farmers show what an arrogant and racist bunch they are. It shows they want to derail the land redistribution programme by all means,” he said. ”They will not succeed.”
”We’ve told them in no uncertain terms that we are going to distribute land and that the land reform is irreversible,” he said.
Although the minister’s remarks primed confrontation, farmers and police reported continued calm in the countryside.
”I am glad nothing has happened. I am very pleased that we are not having an aggressive approach, it’s a very good sign for us. It’s the most sensible approach,” Colin Cloete president of the Commercial Farmers Union said.
The white farmers were given hope by a last-minute high court decision on Wednesday that a mortgaged farm may not be seized if the mortgage company had not been properly informed of the government plans.
Farmers who ignore the eviction orders could be fined and jailed for up to two years for violating the order.
”Those who are going to work against the laws of Zimbabwe will have no-one to blame but themselves. The law will take its own course. Simple and straightforward,” Vice President Joseph Msika said on state television on Friday.
So far there have been no reports of farmers being arrested but some have been harassed and intimidated by government supporters occupying their lands, the union said. – Sapa-AFP