Whites enemies of State: Mugabe

HARARE, APRIL. 19. The Zimbabwean President, Mr. Robert Mugabe branded white farmers enemies of the State on Tuesday, hours after a mob of gunmen attacked and killed a second landowner who was resisting government-inspired attempts to force him off his property.

Speaking on the 20th anniversary of independence from Britain, Mr. Mugabe accused white farmers of seeking to ``reverse our revolution and our independence''. His comments seem certain to intensify the rising political violence that has claimed the lives of six persons in recent weeks.

Martin Olds, 43, died following a lengthy gun fight which broke out when a large group of gunmen raided his farmhouse, 400 miles south-west of Harare, at dawn Tuesday. In a desperate radio message to a neighbour, he said: ``I've been shot and I need an ambulance.'' The ambulance was reportedly turned back by his killers. Olds's widow, Kathy, described him as ``a rock, a moral man of very high principles'' and said she had no idea why he had been targeted.

Mr. Mugabe's comments came minutes after a televised address to the nation in which he made conciliatory remarks about whites and said he would try to resolve the crisis on the farms. But he abruptly reverted to his now familiar rabble-rousing when questioned by reporters. He told Zimbabwe's State television that he had chastised leaders of the embattled white farming community who had met him a day earlier, urging him to end the invasions of white-owned farms by pro-Mugabe squatters.

Leaders of the Commercial Farmers' Union had emerged from the meeting expressing optimism that the President would take action to defuse the tensions. But Mr. Mugabe said he told the farmers: ``Our present state of mind is that you are our enemies, because you have behaved as enemies of Zimbabwe and that we are full of anger. Our entire community is angry and this is why you see the war veterans seizing land.'' The farmers' greatest sin, according to Mr. Mugabe, was to have agitated for the ``no'' vote in a referendum to approve a draft Constitution that included a clause allowing the Government to seize farms without paying compensation. The referendum was defeated, but the clause was passed in Parliament and was signed into law by Mr. Mugabe on Tuesday.

The Zimbabwe opposition claims the invasion of some 600 farms is a ploy by Mr. Mugabe to divert attention away from the country's economic collapse, drum up nationalist fervour and to intimidate his opponents before the forthcoming general election.

- Telegraph Group Limited, London, 2000.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : International
Previous : Italian PM steps down
Next     : Israeli move leaves many issues unresolved