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Zimbabwe's Attorney-General Patrick Chinamasa has warned that any attempt to evict squatters from white-owned farms could spark a civil war, news reports said.
Chinamasa told the High Court that Zimbabwe was a powder keg which would explode if police attempted to enforce a court order to remove thousands of government supporters from white-owned farms. A lawyer representing commercial farmers responded by accusing Chinamasa and the police commissioner of tearing up Zimbabwe's constitution and denying white people the protection of the law.
The High Court will rule on Thursday on the application by the police to overturn the eviction order.
The attorney-general has acknowledged that the farm invasions by what he said were 60,000 squatters were unlawful, but said the court order was simply unenforceable and that the matter should be dealt with politically.
Hundreds of farms have been occupied in a campaign of aggressive land redistribution backed by President Robert Mugabe - forcing increasing numbers of whites to abandon their properties.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions