The Zimbabwe government has rounded on white farmers here, accusing some of being ”British-sponsored lawless elements” behind recent mass action in the country, a newspaper said on Sunday.
In comments carried by the state-controlled Sunday Mail Information Minister Jonathan Moyo accused some white farmers of defying government orders to leave their land.
The comments are likely to be seen as a slap in the face for the white-dominated Commercial Farmers’ Union (CFU) which last year chose to drop most legal challenges against the government’s acquisition of their land in favour of dialogue.
Moyo also accused the farmers of being ”part of the brains” behind an opposition led job stayaway last month that saw urban areas closed down across the country.
”The time has come for them to be dealt with in terms of the full wrath of the law. Their lawlessness will no longer be entertained,” he said.
Relations between the government of President Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe’s 4 500 or so white farmers have been testy since the controversial land reform programme was launched three years ago.
The CFU has recently expressed its concern over the continued eviction of farmers and the acquisition of farms even though the government last year declared that land acquisition was over.
Last week, the CFU claimed a farmer in the southern district of Mwenezi was abducted and beaten by a group of around 200 ”settlers” who forced him to sign a document agreeing to leave his farm.
The union’s concerns were included in a letter recently sent to Agriculture Minister Joseph Made, the Sunday Mail reported. The letter prompted an angry response from the government, the paper said.
Moyo was quoted as saying that the CFU no longer represents commercial farmers ”but in fact now represents unrepentant Rhodie (former white minority Rhodesian) farmers and other lawless elements”.
Around 11-million hectares of previously white-owned land has so far been seized by the government for redistribution among new black farmers. Only around 600 white farmers are reported to still be on their farms.
Moyo accused the farmers’ union of being behind the March 18-19 job stayaway called by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to protest alleged misgovernance.
The government has received widespread criticism, including from the US government, for its alleged crackdown on domestic opponents in the wake of the mass action. Hundreds of opposition supporters were arrested. – Sapa-AFP