A rchive Date
[ 07-03-2005 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Zimbabwe ]
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[http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=AFRICA&STORYID=APIS7KDH9180
Zimbabwe Emphasizes Farm Order
By MICHAEL HARTNACK
Associated Press Writer
JUNE 27, 09:35 ET
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe's ruling party urged tough action against white farmers who defy orders to stop working their fields, and dismissed claims that the land seizures have exacerbated the country's hunger crisis, state media reported Thursday.
At a meeting Wednesday, the leaders of President Robert Mugabe's ruling party said many white farmers were ignoring the order, which took effect earlier this week. ``(The government) should take swift action against any farmer who breaks the law,'' the party politburo said in a statement, according to the state-run Herald newspaper Thursday.
But most farmers stopped working months ago, intimidated by armed militants occupying their land and paralyzed by the threat of the government's ``fast track'' program to seize white-owned farms and redistribute them to landless blacks.
The land seizures have decimated the nation's commercial farming industry and come amid a potentially devastating food crisis in Zimbabwe. The agriculture minister was quoted in the Herald as saying the crisis had nothing to do with the land seizures.
``We dismiss the claim that the government is destroying the backbone of the country's agriculture-based economy by resettling landless people,'' Agriculture Minister Joseph Made told The Herald.
The World Food Program estimates that nearly half of the 12.5 million Zimbabweans were at risk of starvation in the coming year. A team led by the Kenzo Oshima, the U.N. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief, arrived Wednesday on an assessment tour.
But despite promises to redistribute the confiscated land to have-nots, many of the farms have been given to confidantes of Mugabe and ruling party leaders. The party leaders also accused white farmers of trying to take over the country, saying they were taking ``a racist and fascist approach of wanting to continue white dominance in this country,'' Made said.
Less than 1 percent of Zimbabwe's population is white - mostly the descendants of British and South African settlers. Zimbabwe won independence from Britain in 1980 and Mugabe's critics have accused him of trying to stir up racial tensions in an effort to deflect attention from the country's crumbling economy.
The 2,900 farmers ordered to stop working their farms face an Aug. 8 deadline to evacuate their homes.
With hundreds of other farms already seized, about 95 percent of the nation's 4,000 white farmers will be out of business if the government order is enforced, farmer representatives have said.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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