'Farm seizures will continue'

HARARE, JUNE 28. The Zimbabwean President, Mr. Robert Mugabe's Government said today that it would push ahead with plans to seize more than 800 white-owned farms in the country despite only narrowly winning Parliamentary elections. The announcement came even as Mr. Mugabe urged reconciliation, saying ``the results do bind us all.`` The President, addressing the nation on radio, also urged ''unity across race, tribe and ethnicity``, having spent the election campaign attacking white Zimbabweans and slamming Britain.

Asked about the farm seizures, the Information Minister, Mr. Chen Chimutengwende told Reuters: ``We are committed to our programme.'' But he added: ``We are also committed to peace and order.'' He said the programme would be discussed at a meeting of the ruling Zanu-PF party's top policy- making committee later on Wednesday. The election campaign was marred by violence linked to the invasions of hundreds of white- owned farms by liberation war veterans since February. Around 30 people, mostly opposition supporters, died in the farm invasions and political violence.

Three weeks before the elections, Mr. Mugabe's Government targeted 804 white-owned farms for redistribution to landless black peasants. The Government has said it would only pay for farm improvements and not the land itself, passing that responsibility to former colonial ruler Britain. In his address, Mr. Mugabe said, ``Well done Zimbabweans, let us keep it up,'' he said.

``The results are out, and these do bind us all, winner and loser alike. Our poll attracted enormous interest from all over the world, and that interest expressed itself by way of thousands of quests who came to observe the way we run our elections here,'' he said. ``Many of them came with different attitudes, conceptions or misconceptions, perceptions, prejudices....''

``Among these quests were some who, much in the mould of the Victorian civilising mission, thought they had come to pacify, give virtue, and thus redeem us, the natives. Today the majority of them go away both humbled and educated, convinced and highly impressed how we do things here, how against the background ... of a divisive colonial legacy, we are all striving to overcome,'' the President said.

``We are still able to ensure that victory and defeat are quick to reconcile, quick to connect and cohabit in the same national space for greater peace and togetherness.''

`Polls not free'

Meanwhile, the head of the Commonwealth observer team has said campaign leading up to the Parliamentary polls at the weekend was marred by violence and threats which impaired voters' freedom of choice.

``Incidents of violence and threats have impaired the freedom of choice of the electorate,'' the head of the team, the former Nigerian President, Mr. Abdulsalami Abubakar told a press conference in Harare yesterday. Mr. Abubakar, who ushered in democracy in his own country, refused to give an immediate judgment on whether the elections had been free and fair.

- Reuters, AFP

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