Zimbabwe government rounds up white farmers

Aug. 18, 2002 | HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- Ignoring court orders and Western condemnation, Zimbabwe's government stepped up its efforts to seize white-owned land Sunday and rounded up more farmers defying eviction notices.

A total of 133 farmers who failed to heed an Aug. 9 deadline to leave their farms have been arrested since Friday, police spokesman Andrew Phiri said.

There would be “no favor or compromise” for those who broke the government's land redistribution laws, he said. The increasingly unpopular government of President Robert Mugabe plans to seize nearly 5,000 white owned farms, claiming they are to be distributed to landless blacks.

About 60 percent of the 2,900 farmers ordered off their land failed to comply, said Jenni Williams, a spokeswoman for a farmers' pressure group, Justice for Agriculture.

The farmers have no intention of confronting the police but would fight for their farms and their title deeds through the courts, she said.

“Farmers are not defying the government, but rather orders they believe to be illegal,” she said.

http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2002/...bwe/index.html