Zimbabwe farmers face tense stand-off after defying order

Zimbabwe's white farmers began a tense weekend wait for President Robert Mugabe's next move yesterday after many of them defied his order to vacate their properties for black resettlement or risk imprisonment.

Farming leaders said only 860 white farmers had abandoned their properties by the Thursday midnight deadline while 1,700 others chose to stay. Another 300 are said to have "gone on holiday" to avoid confrontation with the government.

With no reports of violence or forced evictions by the authorities yesterday, some farmers suggested that the tide could turn in their favour if they stayed put.

"The legal fraternity is starting to find gaps in the government's armoury," said Vernon Nicolle, who farms in Banket, near Harare, the capital, and was still on his property yesterday. Mr Nicolle said that most people in his area had decided to stay.

But white farmlands in others parts of the country were almost entirely abandoned. "Some of the areas are morgues," he added.

Collin Cloete, the president of the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), said some illegal settlers had tried to evict about six farmers in Manicaland and Masvingo provinces, but there had been no organised evictions by the police.

"The incidents we have had so far are of illegal farm settlers who are pushing their luck," Mr Cloete said. "They [the settlers] knew of this deadline and they are trying to take advantage of the situation to harass farmers and take their land."

President Mugabe, who returned from a trip abroad hours before the expiry of the deadline, is widely expected to make a statement on the farms on Monday in a speech marking Heroes Day, which commemorates those who fought in the 1970s independence war against Britain.

In the meantime, a police spokesman, Wayne Bvudzijena, said the law had been made very clear for the 2,900 landowners served with orders requiring them to leave their farms by yesterday.

"Should the need arise, our duty is to apply the law as it is after following certain procedures," he said. He refused to elaborate on what the police were planning.

Farming leaders said they understood that the police had been instructed to arrest those who defied the orders.

Mr Bvudzijena also denied that a High Court judgment stopping the government from seizing land without notifying holders of mortgage bonds on the farms had given farmers a reprieve to remain on their properties.

Mr Mugabe seemed to have been distracted by the death of his key economic adviser and ally, Bernard Chidzero. Mr Chidzero, 75, a former deputy secretary general of the United Nations trade and development agency, died on Thursday night. He is likely to be declared a national hero.

Farmers said yesterday the farming communities remained tense and uncertain. "You can imagine our predicament. We just have to wait in anticipation. That's no easy task," a farmer, who preferred not to be named, said. He added that most of his neighbours had left the area.

Jenni Williams, a spokes-woman for a CFU splinter group, Justice for Agriculture, said most of the farmers were still on their farms because they had nowhere else to go. She said at least 60 per cent of the affected farmers had remained on their properties. About 30 per cent had left.

Mr Cloete said the CFU had asked farmers not to resist the police should they start a wholesale eviction exercise.

The official Herald newspaper said the "British farmers" were not prepared to relinquish land to poverty-stricken black people. "Let it be made clear to them once and for all – they have a choice to shape up or ship out," the newspaper said. "Zimbabwe now needs people who want to see a success of this country and not saboteurs who will gloat on the failures of Africa."

The UN estimates that half of Zimbabwe's 12.5 million people face severe hunger. The World Food Programme blames the crisis on drought combined with the chaos provoked by land seizures.

Many of the farms that have been taken over have gone to allies of the ruling Zanu-PF party and little planting has taken place. One farmer said land on which he had formerly cultivated wheat was now overgrown with weeds.