Fresh Zimbabwe farm invasion despite land 'deal'

Militants who backed Zimbabwe's land seizure drive invaded a white-owned farm on Saturday and burned workers' homes in the first major incident reported since President Robert Mugabe agreed to end the controversial scheme.

A spokesman for the mainly white Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) said more than 150 militants armed with logs and axes had attacked a farm in Beatrice, 30 miles south of Harare. They chased out workers, set their homes on fire and destroyed tobacco seeds.

"They did not attack the farm manager (Angus Brown) who stays there, but they are demanding that he should leave the farm," the spokesman said.

The invasion came as Zimbabwe waited for President Robert Mugabe to endorse the deal to end his controversial land seizure drive in exchange for funds to implement a fair and just land reform programme.

Government officials said Mugabe was out of the country "on holiday", but refused to give details of his destination or when he was returning to Harare. Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge, who led Zimbabwe's team at the Commonwealth ministerial meeting in Nigeria, said on Friday the government would move swiftly to evict illegal land invaders. But sceptics believe that without Mugabe's public seal of approval, the deal aimed at ending an 18-month land crisis in the southern African country remains shaky.

Nigerian Foreign Minister Sule Lamido, who flew into Harare Friday night, was also waiting to brief Mugabe on the Abuja agreement. By Saturday afternoon there was no official word from the increasingly unpredictable 77-year-old Zimbabwean leader, who has walked away from previous "deals".

Up in Kadoma, 100 miles west of Harare, white farmers were expressing an understandable mixture of scepticism and hope.

In my visits to commercial farms in the past few weeks, it was rare to see a farmer enjoying the evening with his family on the verandah. Most would have barricaded themselves in their houses in case the war veterans called in.

As I approached Tim Joubert's massive Victorian farmhouse and saw him relaxing in the garden with his wife, children and two black farm managers, I assumed they were celebrating Abuja. But they were not.

"If it [the Abuja agreement] can allow us to go on with our farming and get back into business, then it is worth everything," he said. "But we have had these before and nothing has changed."

Joubert chronicled his life with war veterans on the farm and all that he had lost until the invaders were removed and resettled to a properly acquired farm by the Zimbabwe government. Although they were no longer permanently occupying his farm, other landless people often visited his property asking him to leave.

"This is precisely why I hope and want Abuja to work," said Joubert, pointing to several destroyed farm implements near his house.

Others are even more pessimistic, agreeing with the secretary for lands of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, Tendai Biti said: "The problem in Zimbabwe is not land but of a crisis of governance. Abuja has skirted the real issue and that is precisely why it will fail."