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Mugabe 'will enforce farm evictions'
Posted: Monday, August 12, 2002

Staff and agencies, Guardian UK

The president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, today signalled the death of white farming in his country by insisting he would enforce last week's deadline for nearly 2,000 white farmers to abandon their land or face two years in jail.

About 2,900 of Zimbabwe's remaining 4,500 white commercial farmers were told in May to hand over their farms to government control without compensation by midnight last Thursday. About 60% of the farmers facing eviction chose to ignore the deadline and remain on their farms, according to Jenni Williams, a spokeswoman for the new Justice for Agriculture (JAG) pressure group.

The farmers had hoped that either Zimbabwe's courts or Mr Mugabe himself would rescind the land seizure order, but today the president announced: "We set ourselves an August deadline for the redistribution of land and that deadline stands."

Speaking at a Harare cemetery during the funeral of former finance minister, Bernard Chidzero, Mr Mugabe was greeted by about 15,000 supporters carrying posters proclaiming "This land is ours" and "Damn the western world for its racism in Zimbabwe". His speech marked Heroes' Day, a holiday honouring those who fought in the battle for independence.

Mr Mugabe hopes to install new landowners on the farms in time for planting the next crop in autumn.

The white farmers are worried that the president's words could unleash attacks by pro-government militias seeking to redistribute land by force.

The shadow foreign secretary, Michael Ancram, said today in advance of Mr Mugabe's speech that the prime minister, Tony Blair, should use the upcoming Earth summit in Johannesburg to take a stand against the violence, famine and land seizures in Zimbabwe.

"Mugabe and his people, I think, will be out in Johannesburg. They have got to be faced out. They world has got to say to them that this type of behaviour - the murder, the mayhem, the obscenity of starvation on the one side against agricultural land which could be producing food laying idle on the other - this is simply not on," Mr Ancram said.

Britain has led international condemnation of Mr Mugabe's government and recently arrested a member of the ruling Zanu PF party who entered the UK in breach of EU sanctions.

Such actions led Mr Mugabe to refer to Mr Blair this morning as "the gangster of No 10 Downing Street".

Reproduced from:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/zimbabwe/article/0,2763,773256,00.html
 

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