by Andrew Moyo
HARARE - Violence intensified on farms across Zimbabwe over the Easter holidays, with farm invaders attacking workers and owners, while more than US$2 million worth of produce could go to waste after invaders stopped harvesting operations on at least at two farms.
At Nancy Carmel farm near the town of Chegutu, a farm labourer was severely burnt after a mob of farm invaders assaulted him and threw him into a fire, a farmer, Ben Freath, told ZimOnline.
The invaders have also been stealing mangoes at the farm, according to Freath, who is part of a group of white farmers who successfully challenged the legality of the government's land reform programme at the regional SADC Tribunal.
"About US$50 000 worth of mango has been affected and 150 workers are not allowed to work. One of them was thrown into the fire .... they beat him up and he suffered a broken scull," Freath said.
At Stokedale farm, also near Chegutu, invaders forced operations to a halt and oranges worth US$2 million could go to waste as a result, according to Justice for Agriculture (JAG), a pressure group for white farmers.
A group of invaders stormed Wolghamton farm in Chipinge in the east of the country over the holidays and attempted to stop owner Trevor Gifford from harvesting timber at the farm.
Gifford, who is also president of the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) that is the main representative body for the country's white farmers, said invaders showed him a "fraudulent court order" that he should stop harvesting the timber.
"They had a fraudulent court document in which the beneficiary wanted to get the police to stop me from harvesting saying he had obtained a court order to do so," said Gifford.
Freath said farmers had written to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai who formed a power-sharing government with President Robert Mugabe last February and has called for the arrest and prosecution of farm invaders.
"We have made reports but the Joint Operations Command (JOC) is controlling the situation. We have written to the Prime Minister (Morgan Tsvangirai) regarding what is happening but at this stage it is being allowed to continue and it is difficult for the PM or anyone else to stop it," said Freath.
The JOC, a committee of top securocrats and powerful politicians, is said to be behind the mobs of Mugabe's ZANU PF supporters, war veterans and state security agents that began invading farms almost immediately after formation of an inclusive government in February between Tsvangirai, President Robert Mugabe and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara.
The JOC that includes the commanders of the police and army - and should have been defunct by now in terms of the power-sharing agreement between Zimbabwe's political parties -- is said to be opposed to the new government and is seen as blocking calls by Tsvangirai last month on the police to arrest farm invaders.
Commercial farmers' organisations say invaders have since February raided at least 100 of the about 300 remaining white-owned commercial farms, a development that has intensified doubts over whether the unity government will withstand attempts by ZANU PF hardliners to sabotage it.
The International Monetary Fund and Western countries have - on top of other conditions - made it clear that hey would not consider giving aid to the Harare government while farm invasion continue.
Zimbabwe, also grappling with its worst ever economic crisis, has since 2000 when land reforms began, relied on food imports and handouts from international food agencies mainly due to failure by resettled black peasants to maintain production on former white farms.
Poor performance in the mainstay agricultural sector has also had far reaching consequences as hundreds of thousands of people have lost jobs while the manufacturing sector, starved of inputs from the sector, is operating below 30 percent of capacity.
The SADC Tribunal has ruled that Mugabe's controversial programme to seize white-owned land from whites for redistribution to landless blacks was racist, discriminatory and illegal under the SADC Treaty to which Zimbabwe is signatory.
Mugabe, who has in the past rejected the few rulings by Zimbabwean courts against his land reforms, rejected the regional Tribunal ruling and vowed to press on with farm seizures.