2001: Zimbabwe chaos: White Farmers lose millions marauding Blacks – Whites told not to harm them!

Police arrest 39 in Zimbabwe after looting

Original Post Date: 2001-08-29 Time: 04:08:07 Posted By: Jan

14/08/2001

Police have arrested 39 people in northern Zimbabwe after marauding bands
ransacked white-owned farms in the area, police said today. Most of those
arrested were farm employees, Bobby Murwira, a local police spokesperson
said. “Of the 39, 29 of them are farm employees, eight of them resettled
farmers and the two of them ordinary local people,” said Murwira, the
commanding officer of Makonde in Mashonaland West.

However, farmers say many workers were forced by the gangs to participate in
the week-long looting spree by pro-government militants.

Jenni Williams, spokesperson for the Commercial Farmers’ Union (CFU), said
that workers were interviewed yesterday on two of the looted farms.
“They confirmed war veterans were the first to arrive on those farms,” she
said, adding that the workers claimed to have been “forced to assist in
loading and carrying household furniture.”

Farmers lose millions in ransacking
White farmers in Zimbabwe have again suffered violence from militants who
have illegally occupied properties near the town of Chinhoyi. The Commercial
Farmers Union estimates that more than R32 million worth of property has been
lost in a week of ransacking and looting by mobs who have also assaulted
scores of farm workers in Doma and Mhangura. Looters have made away with
tractors, vehicles, fertiliser and other farming equipment, in several cases
leaving farms almost entirely stripped.

State television reported that common thieves have joined in the fray, with
some coming from as far afield as Kariba, in the northern tip of the country,
to carry off refrigerators and other household goods from abandoned farms.

On Saturday, Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s president, warned white farmers
against attacking militants, a day after a court in Chinhoyi denied bail to
the 21 farmers who were charged with inciting public violence after clashes a
week ago on an occupied farm in the area.

Peter Chanetsa, the provincial governor, was adamant those farmers had no
farms to go back to when they were released from jail.

Over the last year supporters of Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party have invaded
hundreds of white-owned farms, backing his drive to seize two thirds of the
12 million hectares for redistribution to blacks. – Reuters

Source: http://archive.africancrisis.info/?p=154

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