President Mugabe argues that the veterans “were carrying out a peaceful demonstration against colonial injustice, which our government recognizes.”
Hardline nationalist and president of the southern African country of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe have maintained that his government would ignore a new court order to evict thousands of independence war veterans (mainly Africans) from more than 900 white-owned farms they have occupied to press demands for land reform. He told thousands of supporters that the government would not enforce the order issued by the High Court in early April 2000 to remove the war veterans from the farms they have seized to coerce white farmers to give up part of their properties for redistribution to landless peasants.
Mugabe’s statement, upon return from the G-77 conference in Cuba, contradicts that of his deputy, Joseph Msika, who told the war veterans to vacate the farms after the court order – the second to be issued by the High Court in three weeks. The government, which has made land reform its main campaign issue for parliamentary elections in May, has given tacit support to the war veterans who have vowed to ignore court orders requiring them to move off the white-owned farms. White farmers own the bulk of the country’s arable land and have largely aligned themselves with the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change, angering the government. A white farmer, who was shot dead by suspected war veterans near Harare on April 15, became the first death since the militant former guerrillas started occupying the farms in late February. The government insists the white farmers should give up part of their vast properties for redistribution to black peasants, and Britain, the former colonial power, pays compensation to farmers whose properties were acquired for resettlement as promised at independence in 1980.
Britain denies financial responsibility to fund land reform but said that it was willing to help if the program was intended to benefit landless peasants.
