Opposition says squatters must leave farms

Opposition groups in Zimbabwe have called on President Robert Mugabe’s government to ensure a court order for the eviction of war veterans from hundreds of white farms is carried out.

A statement carried by the South African Broadcasting Corporation on Tuesday said the appeal to Mugabe had come from the National Constitutional Assembly, a coalition of civic and opposition groups. It said it would call for Mugabe, Home Affairs Minister Dumiso Dabengwa and Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri to resign unless they ensured the High Court order was carried out.

In a growing row with its former colony, British Foreign Office Minister Peter Hain called the occupation of the farms “another sad and downward twist in the spiral of bad governance” in Zimbabwe. Hain criticised Mugabe for failing to enforce the court order.