Farmers flee 'war vet' attacks

White farmers are charged with assaulting black settlers

White families are fleeing their farms in north-western Zimbabwe in the same region where 21 white farmers were charged on Wednesday with assaulting black settlers.

Between 10 and 40 families are reported to have left their homes near the town of Chinhoyi after being attacked by groups of government supporters.

People (are) reporting beatings, property being set on fire, property being stolen and people having to escape

Farming official

A magistrate on Friday denied bail to the farmers who had been in custody.

On Wednesday, militant youths from President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party threatened to attack them if they were set free.

Outside the court building, hundreds of singing and chanting government supporters again gathered on Thursday.

A farming official who declined to be named said: "We are getting distress signals from all around Chinhoyi, people reporting beatings, property being set on fire, property being stolen and people having to escape."

Representatives of white farmers met government officials on Friday to discuss the violence in Chinhoyi.

Emergency

The renewed wave of violence comes as one of Zimbabwe's independent newspapers warns that President Mugabe's government may be preparing to declare a state of emergency and martial law.

The Financial Gazette said that the government may use the passage of a Zimbabwe democracy bill in the US Congress as a pretext for their move.

As part of Mr Mugabe's policy of redistributing land, groups of war veterans and poor black farmers have been encouraged to settle on land forcibly taken from white owners by the Zimbabwean Government.

Following 80 years of colonial rule, whites own about 60% of Zimbabwe's most fertile agricultural land.

So far, nine white farmers have been killed in incidents linked to the land invasions. Two black people - a policeman and a settler - have also been killed.

Defenceless

The 21 farmers in detention in Chinhoyi are accused of ganging up and brutally attacking defenceless resettled farmers at a farm on Monday, leaving five injured.

Many settlers have been living in the open for 18 months

But the farmers say they were acting out of self-defence when self-styled war veterans tried to attack one of them.

Farmers have expressed surprise that none of the war veterans were arrested at the scene of the original fight or during the anti-white attacks which have hit the Chinhoyi region since.

Peter Chanetsa, governor of Mashonaland West province - of which Chinhoyi is the capital - told state television that the farmers who were in custody should know that the government would definitely now target all of their land in the on-going land redistribution exercise.

And speaking on state television, Home Affairs Minister John Nkomo blamed white farmers and not pro-government war veterans for the recent upsurge in violence in the countryside.

The land invasions are widely seen as a ploy by Mr Mugabe to overcome the threat of the new opposition Movement for Democratic Change, MDC.

Shootings

Meanwhile, police say troops at state-run steel works in central Zimbabwe have shot dead two striking workers during a scuffle.

The authorities say soldiers were sent in because of fears that police could be overwhelmed by the strikers, who are demanding a pay rise of 400%.

And in an embarrassing development for the government, the United Nations World Health Organisation has announced that it is preparing to pull out of the capital, Harare, and to return to its previous regional headquarters in Brazzaville.

It denied that the move was in any way connected to Zimbabwe's descent into chaos.