Zimbabwe makes Britain 'liable' for farm seizures
Zimbabwe makes Britain 'liable' for farm seizures
Harare
(Zimbabwe) 07 April 2000
Zimbabwe's
parliament voted on Thursday to make Britain liable for compensating mainly
white owners of farms to be seized for redistribution to blacks and said it
would not accept responsibility if London refused.
Britain,
the ex-colonial master now involved in a furious row with Harare over the land
plan, swiftly rejected the vote. A Department of International Development
spokeswoman said one state could not impose constitutional obligations on
another.
"Britain
does not accept that (Thursday's vote) imposes any obligations on the United
Kingdom," she said.
The
constitutional amendment was voted into law with the minimum 100 votes required
to enforce the clause barely 24 hours after President Robert Mugabe had
threatened to go to war with Britain over his plans to grab land from minority
whites.
Supporters
of Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party occupied more farms on Thursday in a rolling
action that has seen at least two people killed and many injured in clashes.
Parliament's
amendment said: "The former colonial power (Britain) has an obligation to
pay compensation for agricultural land compulsorily acquired for resettlement
through a fund established for the purpose.
"If
the former colonial power fails to pay compensation through such a fund the
government of Zimbabwe has no obligation to pay compensation for agricultural
land compulsorily acquired for resettlement" they said.
Mugabe
told state television on Wednesday he would be willing to fight Britain over
his plan to seize land from Zimbabwe's 4,500 white commercial farmers and give
it to landless blacks. "If they (Britain) want a war to go on, they will
have only themselves to blame," he said.
Officials
said Mugabe would have to sign the amendment into law before he could begin to
validate the invasion of about 800 mainly white-owned farms by supporters of
his ZANU-PF party. Ten occupied farms are owned by black opposition leaders.
Some
political analysts say Mugabe, who has promised to seize five million of the 12
million hectares (12.36 million of 29.65 million acres) of land owned by
whites, is driving the explosive land issue in a bid to regain popularity
before parliamentary elections in May.
His
proposal to rewrite the Zimbabwean constitution to give himself more power,
including the right to expropriate farms, was rejected by a 55 per cent margin
in a February referendum. Mugabe's government faces elections in late May, but
his own position is not up for electoral test until 2002. About 3,000 veterans
of Zimbabwe's 1970s liberation war against Britain and former Prime Minister
Ian Smith's renegade regime have occupied farms in moves declared illegal by
the High Court, but condoned by Mugabe.
Witnesses
say many of the occupiers are clearly too young to have participated in the war
for independence from white rule. About two per cent of Zimbabwe's 12.5 million
population is white, of whom 4,500 are farmers. Mugabe says more than 70 per
cent of the best farmland is owned by whites. In another development the editor
of Zimbabwe's independent Daily News told Reuters that a reporter, a
photographer and driver were taken hostage early on Thursday by veterans while
covering events at a farm in Mvurwi, north of Harare.
"We
have been told that our staff are being held hostage but I still have to be
updated on that," Geoff Nyarota said.
The
owners of the farm, John Hammond, and his wife have been confined there for the
past three days.
GRi../