Government to defend farm invasions

Zimbabwe’s government on Thursday challenged a High Court ruling last week that ordered former liberation fighters to leave hundreds of white farms they have occupied over the past month, the country’s attorney-general said in a statement.

Patrick Chinamasa said he had held talks witht he police chief to assess what he called “the rather volatile and fluid situation” and the “security implications” of police intervention. “I believe that an objective consideration of this further information and submissions might persuade the court to come to a different conclusion,” Chinamasa said in the statement.

The High Court on Friday set a Monday deadline for squatters to leave the more than 600 properties they have invaded to back President Robert Mugabe’s plans to forcibly acquire white farms to resettle landless blacks. The invaders have disregarded the court order and the country’s police have made no efforts to evict them.

The Commercial Farmers Union, a grouping of 4,500 mostly white members who had appealed to the court to declare the invasions illegal, warned at the weekend that if the squatters did not withdraw it could plunge Zimbabwe into anarchy.

The National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), a grouping of civic and labour bodies, has also called on the government to evict the squatters.

Mugabe says it is immoral for 4,500 farmers to own 70 percent of Zimbabwe’s prime farming land while blacks are squeezed into unproductive areas.