Posted on 08/11/2002 3:57:08 AM PDT by Clive
As a group of defiant white farmers waited for the next step by Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's President, in a two-year-old bid to drive them off the land, a senior official said there would be no reprieve on their eviction. The official, who declined to be named, told Reuters Mugabe would address supporters at 10:30am on Monday and was unlikely to change his tough stance on land redistribution.
About 2,900 of the country's 4,500 white commercial farmers faced a weekend deadline to surrender their farms to landless blacks without compensation or face jail. A new farmers' lobby group estimated that about 40% of farmers targeted in the latest land seizure had quit their farms by Thursday's midnight deadline, leaving about 1,740 on their land in defiance of government eviction orders.
The official said Mugabe would speak at a Heroes Day rally in Harare on Monday and not tomorrow, as some had expected.
"There is very strong anger within the government now that the farmers are lying, misrepresenting issues and portraying themselves as victims of injustice without telling the world how much land they are holding," the official told Reuters.
About 70% of the best land was left in the hands of a tiny white minority when British colonial rule ended formally in 1980, after more than a decade of conflict between former Prime Minister Ian Smith's white regime and black guerrillas.
"I think this is one of the questions the president will address, but there is no change in policy," the official said.
In most cases, the eviction of each white farmer means unemployment for scores of black workers as peasant farmers take over and work the lands themselves. - Reuters
Mugabe made a speech in which he implored the farmers to remain and help him to build a new Zimbabwe.
Looking at it through the retrospectroscope, taking Mugabe at his word was a giant mistake.
And why should there be with the UN bringing in grain?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.