UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called today for a credible land reform programme in Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe has embarked on a campaign to seize white-owned farms.
"Land reform in Zimbabwe has to be credible. It must be within the rule of law, it must be a legal process", Mr Annan told reporters in Durban, where he was attending a UN conference on racism.
"Individuals affected must be assured that the whole process will be a fair process. It must be a fair process", Mr Annan said.
Zimbabwe has been in crisis since February 2000 when self-styled veterans of the 1970s liberation war began invading white-owned farms, demanding more land for the country's black majority.
The militants say the farm invasions are a show of support for Mr Mugabe's drive to seize large tracts of white-owned farmland for redistribution to landless blacks.
The 77-year-old Zimbabwean leader, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, defended his land takeover campaign yesterday, saying it was vital to the country's economic development.
"The land belongs to you and you must claim it. Land is where our wealth is", Mr Mugabe told supporters at the opening of a new mint in the southern city of Bulawayo.
In the past three weeks, militants have tightened their grip on hundreds of farms across the southern African country, pegging out more plots of land and driving out farmers and their workers.
About 70,000 black Zimbabwean farm workers and their families have been displaced since militant government supporters began occupying white-owned farms 18 months ago, a farmers' union said yesterday.
The farm invasions have led to a sharp fall in commercial food production in the past year, with output of key crops such as the staple maize dropping by over 60 percent.
Nine farmers have been killed and scores of farm workers assaulted in violence which many analysts say is part of Mr Mugabe's campaign strategy to intimidate political opponents and retain power in presidential elections due by April.
But Mr Mugabe says his land seizure drive has nothing to do with the elections.
He says Britain should pay compensation to Zimbabwe's dispossessed white farmers, but London has said it will not finance land reform carried out amid violence and disregard for the rule of law.
British Foreign Secretary Mr Jack Straw is scheduled to attend talks in Nigeria next week aimed at reducing tension between Harare and London over the land issue.