A leader of Zimbabwe’s feared war veterans, hard-line supporters of President Robert Mugabe, on Thursday denied the invasion of white-owned farms in the wake of a poll dispute.
”There are no farm invasions in Zimbabwe,” national chairperson of the War Veterans’ Association Jabulani Sibanda told South African Broadcasting Corporation radio.
Sibanda said war veterans had merely gone to investigate claims that white people were preparing to ”take back the land” after opposition Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai declared he had won the presidential poll.
Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF has been fanning the flames of the land issue in a bid to discredit Tsvangirai, whom they typecast as a pro-Western stooge planning to resettle the white Zimbabweans.
The Commercial Farmers’ Union (CFU) on Wednesday announced that more than 60 farmers had been driven off their land, in a reminder of President Robert Mugabe’s controversial land reforms, which started in 2000.
”We’ve got over 60 farmers who have been evicted,” CFU president Trevor Gifford said. ”They have been chased away and left everything behind.”
Gifford said a first black farmer had also been forced off by the so-called war veterans, pro-Mugabe activists who were at the forefront of the widespread seizure of white farms earlier in the decade.
However, Sibanda said ”anyone that had been thrown off the land, it is not by war veterans”.
”Some went to farms to investigate the groupings of white people. There is no one that has been thrown off their land. War veterans are disciplined.”
He warned against white people planning to take back farms given to black Zimbabweans during the land reforms.
”The people of this country, they are prepared and ready to protect their country if there is an invasion, an invasion of any kind,” he said.
Zim ready to discuss crisis with neighbours
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s government downplayed ongoing uncertainty about the presidential poll results ahead of an unscheduled meeting of its neighbours on the crisis, state media reported on Thursday.
Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said Zimbabwe was ready to inform the Southern African Development Community (SADC) of political developments on the ground during an extraordinary summit called in Zambia on Saturday.
”That’s normal within SADC community to call for meetings. We are neighbours and that is the spirit of SADC to meet and consider anything,” Ndlovu told the state-run Herald newspaper.
”We are waiting for the ZEC [Zimbabwe Electoral Commission] to do its work, verifying the results because it should announce the correct results, so we don’t see any problem.”
Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, chairperson of the 14-nation SADC, on Wednesday announced he was calling Southern African leaders together to ”discuss ways and means of assisting the people of Zimbabwe”.
International pressure is mounting for Zimbabwe to release the outcome of presidential results, 12 days after polling.
The outcome of the parliamentary poll saw Mugabe lose control of the majority in his worst defeat in 28 years of power.
The winner of the presidency is not yet known as election officials maintain they are still busy collating and verifying votes.
”We have conducted a harmonised election, the first of its kind in the world; it was a mammoth task,” said Ndlovu.
”SADC observers were here and more than 300 journalists and Western countries have admitted that their predictions of them not being free and fair had been proven wrong.” — AFP
