Police Drive Mugabe Supporters Out Of Tourist Resorts
24/01/2011 16:04:00
HARARE, January 24, 2011-Zimbabwean police drove out scores of so-called war
veterans and supporters of President Robert Mugabe after they declared
themselves new owners of several tourist resorts, a minister and media
reports said Monday.
The seizures on Saturday near Lake Chivero, west of the capital Harare, were
ostensibly part of Mugabe’s land reforms, launched in 2000 in what he
described as a bid to correct ownership imbalances in the former British
colony.
But Minister of State Jameson Timba said the latest confiscations were
illegal and he had called in police to put a stop to them after he received
pleas from the businesses’ owners.
“They were moved out yesterday by riot police,” Timba, a member of the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) which is in a power-sharing government
with Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party, told French News Agency AFP.
“There were about 200 of them. Fortunately there was no damage to property.”
Police could not be reached for comment.
Independent daily newspaper NewsDay said its reporters saw a banner at the
properties emblazoned with Mugabe’s portrait and the slogan “100 percent
empowerment and total independence”.
Zimbabwe’s land reform has been an often-chaotic campaign that has seen
4,500 largely white-owned farms expropriated by the state after being seized
by people claiming to be veterans of the liberation war.
ZANU-PF on Monday denied involvement in Saturday’s seizures.
“These actions could not have been perpetrated by our members,” Ignatius
Chombo, ZANU-PF’s secretary for land reform, told the state-run Herald
newspaper.
“ZANU-PF will not support such behaviour,” said Chombo, who is also minister
for local government in the power-sharing coalition.