Zimbabwe police have arrested more than 80 white farmers and charged some in court for defying government orders to vacate land targeted for redistribution to landless blacks, a farm group said today.
It also said police and war veterans had assaulted a white farmer during his arrest today, a month after he left his farm in compliance with a government eviction notice.
"Tony Smith who left his farm a month ago was severely beaten up early this morning allegedly by police and war veterans at his Chisipite home in Harare," a Justice for Agriculture (JAG) spokeswoman said.
Police were not immediately available for comment.
Robert Mugabe's government has ordered 2,900 of the country's remaining 4,500 white commercial farmers to quit their land without compensation, but nearly two thirds are refusing to go after ignoring an August 8th deadline.
Mugabe, who has been in power since the country gained independence from Britain in 1980, says his land drive is aimed at correcting colonial injustice which left 70 per cent of the best farmland in the hands of white farmers.
But the JAG says most of the targeted farmers have only one farm each and nowhere else to stay, nor any other source of income outside agriculture.