Attack shakes Zimbabwe land truce

Militants assault returning farmer

By Associated Press, 9/13/2001

ARARE, Zimbabwe - Ruling party militants assaulted a white farmer yesterday despite a government promise to end violence on white-owned farms.

The farmer, evicted from his farm by militants last month, had been advised by police to return home yesterday after promises to ensure the safety of landowners, the Commercial Farmers Union said.

But on his return to his farm near Marondera, about 45 miles east of Harare, the militants ''immediately set upon him,'' forcing him to barricade himself inside his house, a union statement said.

It said there was no reaction from police. No immediate comment was available from the government or police.

However, in a sign that the police were beginning to crack down, a four-day siege by militants on a farm near Beatrice, 50 miles south of Harare, was broken up by the police. Police freed the white farm manager who had been barricaded in his homestead, the union said.

Since March, the militants have occupied more than 1,700 white-owned farms, spurred by a government campaign to take 4,600 white-owned farms - about 95 percent of all white-owned land in Zimbabwe - and give the land to blacks.

At least nine white farmers have died in clashes since June.

In an accord brokered Sept. 6 by Commonwealth ministers in Abuja, Nigeria, Zimbabwe pledged an immediate end to violence and farm invasions in return for British funding for orderly land reform.

President Robert Mugabe promised Sunday to abide by the accord, but there were doubts that the government could quickly rein in violence by militants.

Eighteen months of violent land seizures have brought Zimbabwe's economy to its knees.

Mugabe has maintained that Britain, Zimbabwe's former colonial master, should compensate 5,000 whites whose farms he wants to redistribute to black Zimbabweans.

Mugabe has been in power for 22 years and plans to seek another six-year presidential term in elections in April.

This story ran on page A23 of the Boston Globe on 9/13/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.