White farmer kills land invader

A white Zimbabwean farmer ran over and killed a would-be settler and dragged the body for several metres under his vehicle before dumping it at the roadside in the east of the country, AFP reported on Monday quoting a police spokesman. Febian Mapenzauswa, 31, had just arrived at Tara Farm in Odzi, near the town of Mutare, on Saturday morning when farmer Phillip Bezuidenhout deliberately drove towards and ran over Mapenzauswa at high speed, the report said.

Bezuidenhout, 51, has been arrested and faces murder charges. He was said to strongly oppose the designation of his farm by President Robert Mugabe’s government for acquisition and resettling of landless blacks. Police said Bezuidenhout initially drove towards the victim and other people at the farm, forcing the group to scuttle away. When he missed them, he reportedly made a U-turn, sped towards Mapenzauswa and knocked him down. “He (the white farmer) was apparently incensed by the presence of the visitors on his farm and he drove recklessly ... and hit Mapenzauswa,” police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena told AFP.

Bezuidenhout had allegedly threatened to deal with the new occupiers and was reportedly overheard saying on Saturday that he would kill 15 blacks, state media reported. The tragedy was the latest in a bitter dispute between landless black Zimbabweans and white farm owners, which has seen bloodshed and the occupation of farms by self-styled veterans of Zimbabwe’s liberation war since early last year. The government is trying to correct colonial imbalances which left white Zimbabweans - less than one percent of the population - owning some 70 percent of the land of the country’s prime farmland. The government has earmarked more than 5,000 white-owned farms for resettling of landless blacks.