zimbabwe

Zimbabwe - Source: 4-20-2000 Sctotsman Publications LTD

"Enemy of Zimbabwe" dies in hail of gunfire

Mugabe fans the flames of land crisis as second white farmer is murdered

CIARAN BYRNE and RON GOLDEN In Harare

HOURS after his supporters murdered another farmer yesterday, Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, declared: "White farmers are the enemies of Zimbabwe."

The latest killing in the country’s deepening farm invasion crisis came as Zimbabwe marked the 20th anniversary of its independence from Britain.

But instead of celebrating, friends and relatives of Martin Olds were preparing to bury the 42-year-old father of two.

He died during a three-hour gun battle with more than one hundred squatters reportedly armed with AK-47 rifles. They descended on his Compensation Farm near Bulawayo, in western Zimbabwe, shortly after dawn.

After being wounded in the leg, Mr Olds radioed for an ambulance but his attackers blocked roads, preventing any help from coming.

Mr Olds’ distraught mother, Gloria, said her son had called her as the attack began. "Martin rang me at a quarter to six to say he was being invaded and could I ring the police. I phoned the police four times and not a damn thing was done. They murdered my son. They beat him to a bloody pulp."

A local photographer, Vicky Kaufman, was one of the first to reach the farm, which was set alight by the killers. She said Mr Olds’ body was lying outside the back door of the farm house in a pool of blood surrounded by some of the implements used to kill him.

"His body was full of bullet holes. The side of his face had been blown away and he had been savagely beaten. It was absolutely brutal," she said.

Mrs Olds said the ground around the smouldering house was littered with spent AK-47 cartridge cases. Outside the back door lay wooden planks, metal poles and a garden fork that had been used to bludgeon Mr Olds.

More than 1,000 white-owned farms have been occupied by supporters of Mr Mugabe in recent weeks. The president has backed the invasions, and yesterday the Commercial Farmers’ Union, which represents 4,500 mainly white land-owners, claimed that Mr Olds’ killers had been given guns by the government.

"If land invasions were demonstrations for land, why are people being given weapons? This is a deliberate ploy to escalate violence," said Mac Crawford, the CFU’s Bulawayo chairman.

Another farmer, Kevin Tinker, was abducted by a group of men yesterday and held for a few hours before being released.

"We are extremely concerned because the police are failing to do their job. The farmers are now on high alert and standing by," added Mr Crawford.

The death of Mr Olds was Zimbabwe’s fourth political killing in as many days: three members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) – one a white farmer – were killed at the weekend.

But Mr Mugabe did little yesterday to cool the growing crisis. Instead, he used a national address to renew support for the hardline war veterans leading the farm invasions.

Mr Mugabe gave mixed signals over how the conflict could yet develop. He offered some regret for the deaths so far and admitted that commercial farmers faced "pressures". But he made a point of highlighting the "frustrations" of the war veterans in their fight for land.

Speaking to reporters later, the 76-year-old leader went even further and hinted belligerently at what could come in the days and weeks ahead. "Our present state of minds is that you [white farmers] are now our enemies because you really have behaved as enemies of Zimbabwe." He added: "We are full of anger and our entire community is angry and this is why our war veterans are now seizing land."

Mr Mugabe last week dissolved parliament, and has said he will hold elections next month. Many expect his ZANU-PF party to be defeated at the polls.

Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the MDC, accused Mr Mugabe of trying to incite racial conflict as an electoral ploy.

"By targeting white farmers, by promoting the racist angle, he is hoping that the whole nation will support him on this dangerous path," he said during a visit to Washington.

"Fortunately the whole of Zimbabwe doesn’t see this as a racist issue. They see this as political opportunism on the part of Mugabe, trying to raise this land issue in the next election," he said.

Britain has been Mr Mugabe’s sternest international critic over the farm crisis. The Foreign Office minister, Peter Hain, condemned yesterday’s killing. "This is just intolerable, absolutely, completely, intolerable and another sign of what I feared from the very beginning – that the situation could spiral out of control," he said.

He said the government would urge Zimbabwe to address the crisis when a ministerial delegation visits Britain next week. "This is probably the most critical time in Zimbabwe’s short history," he told a Foreign Affairs select committee of the House of Commons.

TO SaveOurGuns.com