TWENTY-THREE white Zimbabwean farmers have been arrested near the town of Chinhoyi after clashing violently with militants occupying their land, police said on Tuesday.
The conflict comes amid what farming officials say is an escalation in farm violence as the planting season nears and farmers and occupiers want to prepare their crops on the same land.
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said 19 farmers were arrested on Monday and another four on Tuesday on charges of assaulting five people who had occupied a farm as part of the government's land reform scheme.
They are expected to appear in court Wednesday, Bvudzijena said.
The official Ziana news agency said two occupiers were admitted to Chinhoyi provincial hospital, while a farming official said several people on both sides were injured.
Ziana said the conflict broke out over a misunderstanding between the occupiers and the owner of Listonshiled Farm, Antony Barkely. At the peak of the conflict, about 60 white farmers were at the farm, beating settlers with sticks and stones, the agency said.
But farming officials said the clashes began when occupiers barricaded a farmer inside his home outside Chinhoyi, 100km northwest of Harare.
"A farm owner was beseiged in his house and two farmers came to (his) assistance, and those farmers were stoned and assaulted" by the occupiers, said Malcolm Vowles, spokesman for the Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU).
More farmers came to help those under attack, he added.
Six of the farmers' wives were beaten at the Chinhoyi police station when they tried to visit their husbands, but were too scared to identify their attackers, another farming official said.
Mashonaland West provincial governor Peter Chanetsa told state television that the attack on Monday was "pre-meditated" because farmers had not called the authorities to settle their dispute with the occupiers.
Police generally have refused to take action against farm occupiers, despite a Supreme Court ruling in November that ordered police to evict the squatters.
"Now that we are near the agricultural season, the conflict is escalating," Vowles said.
Occupiers have prevented about 250 of Zimbabwe's 1 500 tobacco farms from preparing the land for next year's crop, he added.
Violence broke out on Zimbabwe's white-owned farms 18 months ago, after President Robert Mugabe lost a referendum on a new constitution.
Mugabe has openly backed the forcible occupations of hundreds of white-owned farms as part of his scheme to redress colonial inequities in land ownership.
But the farm violence has had a strong political coloring, and has been closely linked to the intimidation of opposition supporters.
At least 34 people died in political violence ahead of last year's parliamentary elections, while rights groups say 19 000 were tortured. - AFP

Imagine what would happen here if they tried something like that...

Typical problem when you have
1) big social disparities
2) big racial problems
3) kleptomaniacs in the highest political offices.

Mugabe is consciously trying to make the white farmers in Zb more visible so that attention is diverted away from his stupidity.  Most of those occupying "war veterans" didn't even fight in the insurrection.

If I were white, and I lived in Zb, I would sadly leave my country.  If I can't defend myself, I move.


FWIW, I hear that the number of South African  
white farmers killed on their land is much much larger than those killed in Zb.  

A shitty situation.  Move away.  

They had a show on this past weekend about the farmers plight.  The even interviewed some of them that are still there.  One was beaten and tortured for three days before escaping.  They also recently passed a law that allows any sort of politically motivated violence, short of actual murder.  

If I was a White farmer, or even worked on one of the farms, I think I would be leaving the area.  The war veterans are behind the plan to seize all of the white controlled land and farms as reparation for their service.  The only problem is that the farms represent 40% of the nations economy and employ almost 60% of the workers in the country.  They are also killing the black workers on the farms trying to protect their jobs.

Most of the black residents do not support the practice, but in light of the tactics and support of the government, what can they say.
All of those who have resisted have been eventually overcome by the land grabbers.

I must have been sleeping, but, I remember before all this started years ago that every farmer had weapons. You can easily be stoned to death by a mob so I see absolutely no problem
on wasting everyone in the mob with the appropriate firepower at hand.

[b]Guys, would you leave your homes and move away if someone was trying to squat on your land?  Or would you stand and fight??[/b]

Fortunately our laws protect us from such a thing, but if they didnt it would be ugly.  If you couldn't defend yourself leaving may be the only way to survive.  And I can't imagine being a white guy in Africa would be that good of a thing.  We have racial problems here in the states, but you can get killed a heck of a lot easier over there where the gov't doesn't care about its citizens.  The worst part is if the tobacco farmers are such a huge part of the economy and the gov't allows these squatters to take over the land it will be another case of the U.S. sending more money to another piece of shit third world county.  Our tax dollars at work again!!!

[beer]

All I can say is, if you took away their      AK-47's and Machetes and gave them back their "Loin Cloths" and Spears they would immediately drop back 10,000 years into the stone age. I'm looking back 50 years and better and see what has happened pretty much throughout Africa when the different countries started declaring their independence. Now they kill each other (Tribe against Tribe)and the
corruption (Nigeria for example) is something to behold. Countries like this and other countries throughout the world will always be a (Third World Country) unless somebody wakes up. Sorry for speech.

Satcong,

I'd rather lose a battle than the entire war. As far as I know, the farmers do not have any firearms or easy means to defend themselves.  Plus, the Mugabe government is trying to portray the whites as wicked.  

If my government was actively preventing me from protecting life, limb and property, I would GET THE F@#K OUT.  

OT-- I remember seeing a TIME magazine photo of a white woman in then-Rhodesia going to play tennis.  She had on her tennis dress, and a wooden racquet in her left hand.  In her right hand was an FN FAL rifle.  

Naw Bat21,

you are on the $$$$.   I keep on waiting for the Africans to haul themselves out of the gutter.  I realize that the western world raked Africa over the coals what with slave abstraction and forcible colonization, but Jesus, the African governments screw their own peoples over and over again despite great potential wealth to parcel out.

I have pretty well given up on the Africans.  It's like a dog dying in the street by bits.

Too many tribes, too much age-old enmity.  Thank God that I live in America.  

WHy don't the legal landowners either kill thepoliticians themselves, or hire it out to be done?  How hard could it be to kill these strutting "genralismos for life"?

Kill a few dozen of them, install your own government, everyone is happy.

I really feel for them.  White Rhodesians, SA'cans, their ancestors carved cities and commerce out of the jungle.  Now they're being systimatically murdered.  

FWIW,

I don't think that there is much jungle in SA and Rhodesia to carve out.  There is some temperate forestland, and some savannah (dry plains).  I think that there is also some desert ala something called the Kalahari.  Too far south to be tropical.  

I don't think they are being systematically murdered, because if that were the case, they'd all be dead already.  They definitely ARE being discriminated against, but in Africa, being discriminated against seems to come with the territory whether you are black or white.  Plenty of black on black violence, intimidation and misery too.  

Soon the blacks will be starving in those countries (just like happened in Kenya).  Those farmers are not native slash-and-burners, they use capital-intensive western agriculture to grow enough food to feed the country and export.  The squatters will return the area to bushland in a few years.  The squatters and their political leaders are fools--they cannot grasp that economics is not a zero-sum game.

GunLvr

Ya you say, "stand and fight", but if you lived under a government where the SLIGHTEST retaliation against the friggin 'war vets' was punishable by torture and jail time.  I think you'd be singing a different tune.  Or maybe you'd incur some ruby ridge style stand off with the authorities until they finally just RPG'ed your farm house.

alphabeta121

I see what all of you mean, good points.  I guess there is no way out of the mess for them.  Sad, they used to EXPORT food from all of the countries mentioned.  Sad and wasteful.

Mugabe is VERY well protected. Anyone that even mistakenly comes within miles of his compound is killed on the spot.

SOF has done some good reporting on Zimbabwe. The white farmers are outnumbered big time. Huge groups of squatters show up, beat farmer, rape wife, destroy farm. The farms that have been totally taken over have not had any work done since the "veterans" moved in. Lazy, worthless Mofos.

The worst part is, not only do you get to watch your wife get beat and raped, but she now has AIDS.

This whole situation boils my blood.

Where's the UN now?

He does need to be removed from power though. Maybe the mall ninja can HALO in and do the job.

Land Reform and New Economic Zone only happens in Communist State.

Land Reform: Taking land away from rightuous owners to give to the poors.

New Economic Zone: Taking the upper class to middle of nowhere to restart anew.

Hey, I just found a use for LEGP #500 to #1000: Ship them to Africa.  Those farmers deserve a chance at living their lives without being shit on by the squatters.  Throw in 1k of .223pmp and a few 30 rounders per rifle for good measure.  Dont forget to include a rear sight.

Kharn