- HARARE, Zimbabwe (Reuters)
- Zimbabwe's white farmers trickled back to their farms Monday, ignoring
the latest weekend deadline to quit their land and make way for landless
blacks, a farmers' group said.
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- President Robert Mugabe has ordered 2,900 commercial
farmers to quit their land without compensation under a controversial program
to seize white-owned farms and hand them over to the black majority.
-
- Farmers' group Justice for Agriculture (JAG) had asked
farmers to ignore Sunday's eviction deadline, saying it appeared to be
unofficial. Some farmers complied while others left fearing for their safety.
-
- JAG spokeswoman said Jenni Williams it was still unclear
how many farmers had actually complied with the deadline, the latest since
an eviction order was issued on August 8.
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- "Everything seems to be quiet. There are some people
who seem to have decided to leave, but some who went away for fears of
safety are slowly coming back onto their farms," she said.
-
- Mugabe gave his latest ultimatum to white farmers on
Wednesday, telling them to cooperate with the land reforms, leave the country
or face jail.
-
- But Sunday, police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said he
was not aware of a new deadline. He said police were still carrying out
arrests relating to the initial order made in August.
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- JAG says some 2,500 farmers have defied the initial eviction
orders. Police have charged more than 300 of them.
-
- Police also arrested white farmer Jim Arrow-Smith Sunday
on the separate charge of failing to deliver his maize crop to the state
Grain Marketing Board, which has a legal monopoly on all maize trading.
-
- Williams said Arrow-Smith, whose farm has been designated
for seizure, was likely to appear in court Monday.
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- "He spent the night in jail. I was told that they
are going to court today," she said.
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- Police were not immediately available for comment.
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- Under Zimbabwean law all farmers must hand over their
maize crop to the Grain Marketing Board. The staple maize output has fallen
sharply, leaving half the country's 13 million people in need food aid
this year.
-
- Mugabe's government blames a severe drought for the food
shortages, part of a wider crisis in six drought-stricken southern African
countries. Aid agencies say Mugabe's land reforms have exacerbated the
problem.
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- Zimbabwe has been in crisis since pro-government militants
led by veterans of the 1970s liberation war began invading white-owned
farms in early 2000.
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- Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980,
says his land drive is aimed at correcting colonial injustice, which left
70 percent of the country's best land in the hands of whites who make up
less than one percent of the population.
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