Militant black settlers have violently forced a white Zimbabwean and his family off their land in the first eviction since a government ultimatum to white farmers expired last week.
About 150 settlers armed with clubs and sticks ordered Mr Terry Hinde, his wife Sue and son off their farm near Bindura, 90 km north of Harare, early yesterday morning.
Mr Hinde immediately called a removals firm but by lunchtime, the settlers had entered his house and had started moving his furniture on to the lawn. "Things are getting a bit out of hand here," he told The Irish Times by telephone from inside the farmhouse.
They family had locked themselves into one side of the house and were communicating with the settlers through an open window.
The settlers were demanding that the family hand over a reporter from the independent Daily News who was sheltering with them. A correspondent with the Daily Telegraph was also in the house; both later escaped unhurt.
Other journalists attempting to enter the compound during the day were attacked and chased away. Later in the afternoon Ms Sue Hinde drove off the farm as the settlers taunted her with chants of "Go back to Britain".
An estimated 60 per cent of the 2,900 white farmers ordered to vacate their properties by midnight last Thursday have refused to leave, according to farming officials. Despite rising tension, however, there has been only a handful of violent incidents.
"We hope this is an isolated case but are concerned that it may set an unfortunate precedent," said Ms Jenni Williams of the advocacy group Justice for Agriculture.
At the weekend, a group armed with AK-47 assault rifles visited four farms in the Middle Sabi area, 475 km from Harare, and ordered the owners to leave.
On Tuesday, farmer Ms Hazel Thornhill returned to her farm near Marondera after a weekend spent in Harare to find that squatters had moved into her house and emptied her possessions on to the lawn.
"We found a state of complete chaos," she said in a detailed report e-mailed to Justice for Agriculture.
The Hinde family planned to file an urgent court motion to hang on to their land and the advocacy group is urging other threatened farmers to do likewise.
However the Mugabe government views such court actions as "confrontational". In a fiery speech last Monday, President Robert Mugabe warned that his government would "brook no impediment and suffer no avoidable delays".
AFP adds: The Botswana Agricultural Union has urged Zimbabwean farmers who have been ordered off their land to come to neighbouring Botswana. The union's chief executive, Mr Bowetswe Masilo, said white Zimbabwean farmers should be encouraged to revive Botswana's agricultural sector.