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Harare says will arrest defiant white farmers
ZimOnline
February 06, 2007

http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=840

HARARE – The Zimbabwean government says it will soon arrest white farmers who failed to meet a weekend deadline to move out of their properties to make way for newly resettled black farmers.

State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa, who is also in charge of land reforms, told ZimOnline on Monday that the police will swoop on the defiant white farmers who ignored the 3 February deadline to quit their farms.

Under the government’s Gazetted Farms (Consequential Provisions) Act, white farmers had until last Saturday to move out of the properties or face arrest.

At least 150 out of the remaining 600 white farmers were issued with eviction notices last year under the new Act.

The main white farmer representative body, the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) at the weekend advised its members to defy the directive to move out saying arrests were the only way their case could be heard.

"We are still assessing who is gone and who has refused. Those who are clever have already left their farms as required by law.

"Those that are saying they will defy the law will soon find out that they are not clever at all when the police start doing their job. They will be arrested," said Mutasa.

Mutasa is a close confidante of President Robert Mugabe. The security minister last month caused a stir when he said that the government was going ahead with plans to weed out all the remaining white farmers with only a "few lucky ones" to remain on their properties.

"We want to bring finality to the land issue and those who stubbornly stand in our way will face the music.

"We have enough laws, enough jails for anyone who compromises government policies by deliberately breaking the law. We are not afraid of white farmers, and our history shows that," added Mutasa.

Between 400 and 600 white farmers remain on the land out of the about 4 000 who were farming in Zimbabwe before the government launched its chaotic and often violent land redistribution exercise seven years ago.

Zimbabwe, which is grappling with its worst ever economic recession, has since 2000 relied on food imports and handouts from international food agencies because the new black farmers failed to maintain production on the former white farms. - ZimOnline

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