White Zimbabwean farmers 'go on the run' to avoid arrest

At least 29 more white farmers in Zimbabwe were charged yesterday with defying an order to surrender their land to landless black peasants.

Nearly 200 farmers have been arrested since Friday and dozens appeared in court yesterday. Amid reports that some white farmers had gone on the run to avoid arrest, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said police were now beating up black farm workers, magistrates and even children.

Roy Bennet, a white farmer and MP for the MDC, said police and soldiers looted his farm at Chimanimani, in Manicaland province, at the weekend and indiscriminately beat some of his 1,500 workers. He said 15 of his security guards were abducted and had not been heard from since, and children had been beaten until they revealed the whereabouts of their MDC-supporting parents.

"The crisis in Zimbabwe is not just about the white farming community. [President] Robert Mugabe's mobs are attacking thousands of black farm workers who support the opposition MDC, in a systematic attempt to crush the opposition to his rule," he said.

About 150 farmers have been arrested since last week, when the government began cracking down on those who defied an 8 August eviction deadline. The Commercial Farmers' Union president, Colin Cloete, was arrested yesterday. Between 30 and 40 people were granted bail over the weekend, according to the farmers' pressure group Justice for Agriculture. The rest remain in custody.

Mr Bennet said that magistrates who freed detainees risked being beaten. One magistrate in Manicaland, Walter Chidakwa, was dragged from his courtroom in Chipinga, beaten, then paraded around town and made to chant Zanu-PF slogans, he said.

Mr Mugabe's government has selected nearly 5,000 farms for redistribution. It has ordered 2,900 white farmers to surrender their farms or risk a two-year jail sentence and a fine. About 60 per cent of the farmers have defied the order but a police spokesman said yesterday some of them were now on the run.

Last week, the United Nations warned that six million Zimbabweans faced hunger, as the evictions were just before the planting season and food was being seized for Mr Mugabe's supporters.

Mr Bennet said: "There is nobody in their right mind who would oppose agrarian land reform for the betterment of the people. What is being done is not land reform, it is suppression of another view."

Yesterday, Mozambique's Foreign Minister, Leonardo Simao, invited evicted farmers to farm there. "If someone wants to come here and invest, and respects our investment laws, he is welcome. Be he or she white, black, yellow, green ... he is welcome," he said.