Zimbabwe's self-styled war veterans stepped up their siege of white farms yesterday as African leaders met in Harare to try to end a land crisis seen threatening the region.
Mr Arthur Harley, a farmer in Beatrice district near Harare said he and his manager had been forced to barricade themselves in his house for the past three days as militants tried to force him to leave the property.
"We've been locked inside this house and they have chased all my labour away. They want us out of the land which they said is theirs now," Mr Harley said. He said police had failed to diffuse the situation.
Another farming official in the northern district of Karoi said militants had threatened three white farmers with knives and knobkerries on Monday night.
A CNN television crew working in the area was briefly detained by police and had their tapes confiscated.
The stepped-up attacks came as southern African leaders resumed a second day of talks yesterday to help resolve Zimbabwe's land crisis. The talks were blighted on the first day by war veterans' threats to keep up farm invasions they started in February, 2000, with government approval until "injustices" were rectified.
The militants say the invasions are meant to bolster President Robert Mugabe's controversial drive to seize over two-thirds of the 12 million hectares of white-owned farmland for redistribution to landless blacks.
The militants said they told the African leaders on Monday that they would not accept any land deal which curbs Harare's ability to speed up land reforms. "For as long as the injustices against the indigenous people of this country are not rectified our peaceful demonstrations on the farm lands will continue," they said in a statement.
Nine white farmers have been killed and scores of black farm workers assaulted in the violence which has accompanied the farm invasions.
On Monday night, Mr Colin Cloete of the Commercial Farmers' Union grouping 4,500 white farmers, said a meeting with southern African leaders had revealed that dialogue had obviously broken down badly over the last year.
On Sunday, Mr Mugabe endorsed a plan brokered in Abuja to end farm seizures in exchange for funds to implement a fair, just land reform programme, but said he needed the approval of his ruling ZANU-PF party's politburo and the cabinet.
AFP reports:
A sweeping victory for Zimbabwe's opposition party in a key mayoral election in the second city of Bulawayo has dealt a blow to Mr Mugabe and ushered in a spirit of political change, observers said yesterday.
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) overwhelming defeated ZANU-PF by winning the post of mayor of Bulawayo.
The MDC received 60,988 votes to ZANU-PF's 12,783. Observers said the opposition win is a forecast of Zimbabwe's future political climate as it approaches presidential elections. ZANU-PF's defeat is reminiscent of last year's June general elections, in which the MDC swept 21 out of 23 constituencies in the western province of Matabeleland, of which Bulawayo is capital.