Zimbabwe's white farmers targeted for new Mugabe land grabs
As an ageing Mr Mugabe celebrates his 91st birthday, white farmers report a fresh effort to drive them from their land
When war veterans arrived to claim Craig Edy’s farm during Zimbabwe’s violent land invasions, he simply refused to budge from his tin-roofed home on his newly-acquired cattle farm.
The raiders eventually gave up, leaving Mr Edy to build up his business on the 1,500-acre plot in Fort Rixon, a dusty farming region in Zimbabwe’s Matabeleland province.
This week, however, the spectre of land grabs returned, in the shape of a beady-eyed official from the lands department who arrived and started building a house on the farm. He even confiscated the keys for the farm’s generator when Mr Edy was in town on business.
When Mr Edy sought the help of a cabinet minister he knew, he was arrested and accused of threatening the land official with a gun.
“It was rubbish,” he told The Telegraph by crackly phone line from Bulawayo, where he, his wife and mother-in-law have moved while they wait for a resolution.
“I was also told I was not wanted in Zimbabwe and that I was standing in the way of land reform.”
Far from being an isolated incident, the union that represents Zimbabwe’s 300-odd remaining white farmers believes it represents a fresh bid by President Robert Mugabe to finally rid the country of its white landowners. ...
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