Violence marked the 20th anniversary of what some call the
independence -- and others, the Marxist takeover -- of Rhodesia, renamed
Zimbabwe, as black war veterans and others loyal to the country's
president continued their campaign of violence against the white
minority by killing a second white farmer and stepping up the occupation
of white-owned farmland.
As of yesterday, several hundred farms had been occupied by
disenfranchised black veterans of the country's war for independence as
President Robert G. Mugabe made a nationwide television appearance
condemning all white Zimbabweans as "enemies of the state."
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe |
Mugabe, who has given his approval of the occupation of the farmland
for over two months, said whites inhabiting the former British colony
are now considered state enemies, "because you have behaved as enemies
of Zimbabwe."
"We are full of anger," he said. "Our entire community is angry, and
this is why you have the war veterans now seizing land."
Prior to yesterday's violence, the nation's High Court ordered police
last week to begin evicting the squatters from white farms, an order
they have largely ignored, witnesses said.
However, while white families packed up their belongings and applied
in increasing numbers to British officials in the capital of Harare for
immigration papers, some there predicted the violence coming months ago,
after Mugabe lost a constitutional referendum Feb. 14 that would have
legalized the taking of the farms.
According to a Feb. 21 WorldNetDaily report,
although Mugabe suffered a humiliating defeat in the constitutional
referendum meant to entrench his 20-year rule, critics of the government
feared he would boldly attempt to accomplish the land-theft anyway --
literally to take away all of the farms from the families who built the
country.
Despite the election loss, ruling party legislators passed the law
anyway on April 6.
Willem Ratte, a former Rhodesian Special Forces commander who spoke
to WorldNetDaily earlier this year, said, "These farmers will lose
everything. Their homes and land, their means of making a living. They
can't go to Britain -- they have no passports. They will be destitute
and homeless, wandering around the capital of Harare scavenging for
food."
The latest white farmer to be killed, Martin Olds, was shot by black
squatters on his Nyamandhlovu farm, 50 miles north of the western
provincial capital Bulawayo. Olds, reports said, had initially survived
the shooting and beating and tried to call for help on a radio. However,
his attackers kept medical workers away until it was too late.
Also on Tuesday, a separate group of squatters abducted farmer Kevin
Tinker, a white farmer and opposition supporter, from his farm in
Christon Bank, 10 miles north of Harare, and set David Stobart's farm
ablaze in Enterprise Valley, 25 miles north of Harare after getting into
a fight with his workers.
On Saturday, squatters shot and killed David Stevens, a white farmer
and supporter of the Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC, the main
opposition party. Five other farmers who tried to help him were severely
beaten, reports said.
Farmer Iain Kay was brutally beaten by government-supported |
Earlier this month, Iain Kay, another white farmer and member of the
Movement for Democratic Change, was ambushed on his Marondera farm by a
group of approximately 25 war veterans and squatters. According to a
source in the area, the attackers "torched his motorbike and chased him
into a school on the farm where he locked himself into a classroom. They
attacked him through the windows with catapults, then broke down the
door and administered a savage beating."
Iain Kay's farm, motorcycle in foreground |
The source continued, "His hands were tied with barbed wire and he
was led away into the bush where it is presumed they intended to kill
him. However, he was saved through the timely arrival of his son in a
farm truck, whereupon the attackers fled."
Though Mugabe earlier had cynically pledged to help negotiate a
settlement to the violence, his anniversary speech negated his stated
intentions of restoring order and peace.
The badly beaten Kay is an outspoken critic of the Mugabe |
More worrisome, sources told WorldNetDaily, are fears that the unrest
growing in Zimbabwe will spill over the border because similar
sentiments against whites seem to be favored among black leaders in
neighboring countries.
One source, based in South Africa, told WorldNetDaily, "what is
chilling is that in Mpumalanga (South Africa), and in the Cape, there
have been threats of doing the same (attacking whites)." South Africa's
government supports Mugabe, but sources say the ruling African National
Congress is concerned about the growing "instability" in the region.
"In Kenya there were similar threats," said another source, who added
that he had information indicating Kenyan officials may already have
given whites and other foreigners "90 days to get out of the country."
Many black Zimbabweans are now saying that life in Rhodesia under
white Prime Minister Ian Smith -- widely regarded as a principled
statesman -- was actually better than it is under Mugabe. Quoting a
Zimbabwean poll from mid-March that showed only 36 percent support for
Mugabe, sources in South Africa said war is inevitable between white
farmers and supporters of Mugabe's opposition party on one side, and
government-led forces on the other, if Mugabe forced them to "fight for
their jobs and their existence."
One observer told WorldNetDaily, "If both Mugabe and the ANC are
hell-bent on forcing the white farmers in Zimbabwe off their land, then
it sends a clear message to South African farmers (numbering 60,000)
that they are next."
Sources also report that besides the white farmers killed by Mugabe
loyalists, a growing number of blacks who oppose the regime are also
being killed.
"Mugabe's thugs have killed quite a few blacks -- two on the weekend
and a good number in weeks prior to that," said one observer, who added,
"Mugabe is targeting blacks and whites who support" the opposition
movement, the MDC.
The renewed violence, said witnesses, was Mugabe's attempt to hang on
to a dwindling power base in view of elections later this month, which,
reports said, now may be delayed in lieu of the violence.
Read Anthony LoBaido's commentary, "Final curtain for
Zimbabwe?"
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