(MISA/IFEX) – On 2 March 2000, the state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) television station failed to report an announcement made by Minister of Home Affairs Dumiso Dabengwa. Dabengwa’s announcement ordered veterans of Zimbabwe’s independence war to evacuate the white-owned commercial farms they had illegally invaded “with immediate effect.” However, ZBC’s news bulletin did include an […]
(MISA/IFEX) – On 2 March 2000, the state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) television station failed to report an announcement made by Minister of Home Affairs Dumiso Dabengwa. Dabengwa’s announcement ordered veterans of Zimbabwe’s independence war to evacuate the white-owned commercial farms they had illegally invaded “with immediate effect.”
However, ZBC’s news bulletin did include an announcement by President Robert Mugabe stating that the government would not take action against the war veterans. According to Inter Press Services (IPS), Dabengwa had consulted Mugabe on the matter, saying that “farm owners deserve government support like everyone else.”
During the past three weeks, about fifty white-owned commercial farms have been invaded by ex-combatants who were angered by the recent rejection of the draft constitution which would have allowed land grabs without compensation. The police had reportedly given the war veterans permission to invade the farms as long as it was done in a peaceful and orderly manner.
