Posted on 08/11/2002 2:22:53 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
The majority of Zimbabwe's 2,900 white farmers have defied President Robert Mugabe's land seizure program and are refusing to leave their properties.
Mr Mugabe had set a deadline of midnight on Thursday for them to leave, in time for Zimbabwe's liberation war celebrations yesterday.
But with most of the farmers claiming legal protection after the high court nullified one eviction order on Wednesday on the grounds that the mortgage-lender had not been informed, only about 300 had left their properties by late Friday.
"It's very peaceful all around the country, there's been no mass exodus and no evictions," John Worswick of the Justice for Agriculture campaign said. "Though we're not being complacent: this may be only a lull before the storm."
Two campaigners were arrested on Wednesday, apparently to prevent them challenging the eviction orders in the courts.
"It's becoming almost impossible to operate," the Reverend Tim Neil, one of the two, said before his arrest in Harare. "I've had the police round and I'm sending the staff home." Mr Neil runs a refuge for 150 farm workers made destitute by the land seizures.
With troops reported to be deployed around the country for the holiday, many farmers sent their families to Harare for the weekend. Last year the anniversary was marked by the looting of white farms in Chinhoyi.
"We'll keep out the way for a day or two, but we're going straight back home," said Kote Van Rensburg, who arrived in the capital with her four children on Friday.
"Maybe we're being overly optimistic, but there's no way I would think of leaving my farm whilst there's seed in the ground."
Senior officials would not comment, leaving Mr Mugabe to reveal how he plans to eject the farmers in his speech to the nation this weekend.
But the state media seem to be primed for confrontation. The Herald accused "British farmers" of sabotaging government efforts to find an amicable end to the stand-off.
"Zimbabwe now needs people who want to see a success of this country and not saboteurs who will gloat on the failures of Africa," its editorial said.
Officials accuse white farmers of wrecking their farms to prevent them being taken over successfully by landless peasants, thereby contributing to the severe food shortage. The farmers say they are struggling to protect their property from looters. The 2,900 due for eviction have been banned from farming for the past 45 days.
"There are squatters burning down everything, all the farm buildings," said Mrs Van Rensburg, seven of whose eight farms have been overrun. "It's not intimidation exactly, it's just that they're doing everything they can to make us give up hope."
Nearly all farmers have begun legal challenges to their eviction orders.
Chombo said "appropriate measures" would be taken against farmers breaking the law.
Vice President Simon Muzenda warned that authorities would act firmly against farmers opposing the "irreversible" land program.
"You are told by government what we want done ... and you simply do that," he told state radio Saturday.
The evictions deadline came as half of Zimbabwe's 12.5 million people face a severe hunger crisis, according to the World Food Program. The WFP blames the crisis on drought combined with the agricultural chaos caused by the seizures of commercial farms, which are mainly owned by whites.
The government has targeted 95 percent of white-owned farms for seizure.
In Washington, the U.S. State Department on Saturday denounced Zimbabwe's attempt to evict the farmers and thousands of farm workers as "a reckless and reprehensible act."***
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