Farmers want meeting with Mugabe

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his deputy Arthur Mutambara have called for an end to farm invasions but pro-Mugabe war veterans, Zanu (PF) supporters and officials ignored the call, with scores of farmers displaced form their properties since formation of the coalition government.

Immediate past president of the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), Trevor Gifford, said the group that largely represents white farmers was pushing for a meeting with Mugabe to brief him about farm invasions and to ask that he calls a moratorium on all disturbances on farms.

“We are trying to push for a meeting with the President but he has not yet agreed to one but we are using various channels . different offices to get this meeting,” Gifford told The Zimbabwean on Sunday last week.

Zimbabwes power-sharing government has failed to stop land invasions by supporters of Mugabe despite calls by Tsvangirai and Mutambara for farm disruptions to stop in order to allow revival of the mainstay agriculture sector.

Displaced farmers successfully challenged seizure of their properties by the government at the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal. But Harare ignored a ruling by the regional court that found its land reform programme discriminatory, racist and illegal under the (SADC) Treaty.

Mugabes land reforms are blamed for plunging Zimbabwe into food shortages, a charge he denies.

Tsvangirai has called for an audit to establish who owns which land in Zimbabwe before an orderly land reform programme can be implemented but Mugabe has in the past accused the MDC leader of wishing to return land to former white owners.

Critics say Mugabes cronies and not ordinary peasants benefited the most from farm seizures with some of them ending up with as many as six farms each against the governments stated one-man-one-farm policy.