Zimbabwe's white farmers must risk arrest: pressure group

Feb 3, 2007, 7:50 GMT

Harare - A farming pressure group in Zimbabwe Saturday urged the country's remaining white farmers to face arrest rather than submit to a government deadline to move off their land.

The government had given many of the 400 or so remaining white farmers until Saturday to leave their farms to make way for new black farmers, or face prosecution.

President Robert Mugabe's government announced last month that white farmers with crops in the ground would be given a reprieve to harvest them.

But white farming groups like Justice for Agriculture (JAG) and the Commercial Farmers Union say that eviction notices have continued to be sent out to white farmers despite the extensions.

White farmers could face arrest over the weekend for illegally occupying their farms, JAG said in a statement. To date, approximately 150 of these so-called eviction notices have been delivered to farmers countrywide, the statement said.

'We have strongly advised that in-situ farmers should remain on their farms and face arrest and possible prosecution,' the group said.

'This is the only way that a farmer can effectively resuscitate his day in court and with it, a chance of a fair hearing.'

Twenty-four of the latest eviction notices have been sent to cane farmers in Zimbabwe's southern Chiredzi district.

Seven years ago Mugabe's government launched a controversial programme of white land seizures that saw the majority of the country's 4,500 white farmers driven off their farms to make way for new black farmers.

Only around 30 white farmers, out of 700 who have applied, have been given official permission to stay on the land.

Lands and Security Minister Didymus Mutasa says only white farmers who have shown goodwill towards Mugabe's government will be able to continue farming.