More farmers held by police enforcing Mugabe threat

Zimbabwe's President, Robert Mugabe, began widespread arrests yesterday of defiant white farmers refusing to leave their land.

Twenty seven farmers were arrested, another seven appeared in court and 50 more were charged in the southern province of Matabeleland, for defying last week's government deadline to vacate their farms to make way for landless blacks.

The moves are the clearest sign yet that President Mugabe is cracking down against farmers after the 10 August deadline. He told them in a speech on Monday that the ultimatum still stood.

Farmers' leaders say police chiefs have instructed all police stations to arrest the remainder of some 1,800 farmers, out of a total of 2,900 whose land has been designated for confiscation. They face a maximum penalty of up to two years in jail and a fine. The Commercial Farmers Union's regional chairman for Matabeleland, Mac Crawford, said he and 50 other farmers had been charged with violating Mr Mugabe's order and would appear in court soon.

More ominously, another 27 farmers were arrested yesterday, including Max Rosenfels, 77, of the family that pioneered British colonisation of the territory in 1890. Mr Rosenfels is on crutches after being injured while fighting with poachers on his property last week.

Robin Greaves, an ailing 74-year-old, was also among those arrested yesterday. They were still in police custody later and all indications were that many of them would spend the night in detention.

A police spokesman, Wayne Budzijena, warned this week that the law enforcement authorities would move swiftly against all defiant farmers. Most were being held in Matabeleland, but some were being questioned in the Marondera and Macheke districts east of Harare and the Karoi district north-west of the capital.

Five white farmers appeared in court in Gwanda on charges of defying the government eviction order. They were let out after posting bail of 5,000 Zimbabwe dollars (£60), having been told by the state prosecutor: "You did not obey and continued farming in contravention of section nine of the Land Acquisition Act."

The farmers are the first to face prosecution for resisting Mr Mugabe's order. Two others were released without having to pay bail at a court in the southern Filabusi area.

Witnesses said the farmers looked exhausted and worried in the small but packed courtroom where they were charged. Riot police were deployed outside the court to keep a group of black militants in check. A sixth white farmer was expected to appear in another district court last night.

Justice for Agriculture (JAG), a new lobby group of white farmers advocating court challenges to the President's land seizures, said it had learnt that all police stations had been instructed to arrest farmers remaining on their farms. "The situation keeps on getting more tense. Signals have been sent for police to arrest farmers and charge them in court ... Those being arrested are loyal Zimbabweans and single farm owners," said a JAG spokeswoman, Jenni Williams.

Mr Mugabe had said in his statement on Monday that he was confiscating land only from those farmers who owned more than one property.

Mr Crawford said he and 50 other farmers had been visited by police and charged with failing to abandon their property. But, unlike other farmers, they were not arrested and held in detention. He said he expected to appear at Gwanda magistrates' court.

Ms Williams said officials were in the process of evicting another farmer in the central district of Chegutu, but there were no details.

Black militants armed with clubs and stones forced a white farmer from his land in northeastern Zimbabwe on Wednesday in the first farm seizure since the deadline expired a week ago.

The land reforms coincide with drought, which is causing food shortages in much of southern Africa. An estimated six million Zimbabweans, nearly half the population, are short of food because of disruption on farms and drought.