Mugabe defends his land reforms as more farmers flee angry mobs

Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean President, brushed off suggestions yesterday that he was forcing white farmers out of the country as more terrified families packed up their belongings after their property was looted and attacked by mobs of black squatters.

Mr Mugabe, speaking at a southern African summit in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, defended his controversial land-reform programme, saying: "We are not kicking the white settlers out, but we are being humane and humanitarian."

The white farming community sees it differently, however. Some 300 farmers and their families have fled from about 100 raided farms in the tense Chinhoyi area, 75 miles north-west of Harare, since last week. One farming official was quoted as saying: "It's totally out of hand. We are evacuating women and children and the elderly and the sick."

Colin Cloete, the head of the farmers' union, said that farm equipment, furniture and supplies had been taken away by looters. There were even reports that the looters had turned their anger on to pets that the farmers had left behind. One horse was said to have been slashed with knives and a child's rabbits killed.

One retired farmer who fled to Harare said: "This is anarchy at its worst. When it's safe to go back, we'll have to go and assess the damage and that's going to be absolutely heartbreaking."

The anti-white sentiment was also fuelled by clashes between a group of white farmers and squatters who invaded their land ­ with Mr Mugabe's blessing ­ last Monday. No squatters were arrested, but 21 white farmers were detained on assault charges and are in jail awaiting the outcome of a bail hearing.

Three policemen have been suspended from duty in Chinhoyi, apparently after allowing the farmers to receive food and blankets from their families. Normal regulations allow prisoners "only the barest items" in jail to prevent suicide attempts.

But a police spokesman said that the officers "went in the middle of the night to give them further items of clothing. This is very unprocedural. Why should they [the white farmers] receive special treatment?"

Mr Mugabe defended his land-reform programme, which has had a disastrous effect on aneconomy normally sustained by tobacco crops. "We are not kicking out the British altogether," he said, "although they usually kick us out of their own country."

The reform plan calls for the confiscation of most of the mainly white commercial farmers' land without compensation for redistribution to landless blacks.

Mr Mugabe alleged that the farmers were using only 30 per cent of their land and his government was taking the 70 per cent that was not utilised. His government has said it is focusing on 20.7 million of the 29.6 million acres it claims are owned by whites.

He referred to the white farmers as "absentee landlords sitting in the House of Lords and other places and farming by remote control".

The Zimbabwean President reacted with his habitual defiance at the weekend to a threat by America to invoke economic sanctions against Harare in an attempt to change policy. He declared on Saturday that sanctions would not deter him from his land-reform drive.

The Financial Gazette reported in Harare last week that Mr Mugabe was preparing to declare martial law to shore up his regime, using the adoption of the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act by the US Congress as a pretext.

Thabo Mbeki, the South African President, rejected the sanctions approach, saying he would continue with his "quiet diplomacy" to resolve the dispute, despite acknowledging he had so far failed to make any headway with Mr Mugabe.

Mr Mugabe's land grab, and the increase in attacks on the white community, are widely seen as part of a political strategy aimed at keeping him in power until presidential elections in October next year. He has also launched an intimidation campaign against the media and the judiciary.