Squatters in Zimbabwe Pledge to End Hostilities

After a week of heightened violence on white-owned farms across Zimbabwe, a leader of squatters occupying the properties pledged Wednesday to end hostilities--but not to leave the land.

Squatters would remain in place while their leaders work peaceably toward a negotiated end to the 2-month-old occupations, said Chenjerai Hunzvi, leader of a group of veterans of Zimbabwe’s independence war that initially led the farm invasions.

“We have agreed hostilities should cease and we should work toward a solution,” Hunzvi said.

The occupations began in February, days after the defeat of a proposed constitutional referendum that aimed to speed up the seizure of white farms for distribution to landless blacks.

The farm occupiers are protesting inequitable land distribution in a country where white farmers own a third of the productive farmland.

President Robert Mugabe mediated talks Wednesday between Hunzvi and leaders of the Commercial Farmers Union, which represents most of the country’s 4,000 white farmers.

Subsequent talks would deal with the issue of squatters withdrawing from the farms, Mugabe said.

Farm leaders were optimistic.

“I believe, in the interest of national unity, we will get to a result,” said Tim Henwood, who heads the farmers union. “We will meet again. We are both determined to reach a solution.”

The occupations have become increasingly violent in the past week, with two white farmers and two black members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change killed. At least six white farmers were badly beaten.

Fearing a further escalation in violence, farm union officials advised white farmers to evacuate their families from the western province of Matabeleland, where farmer Martin Olds was killed Tuesday, and the neighboring province of Midlands, said David Hasluck, director of the union.

Eighty more families remained evacuated from the area near Macheke, 75 miles southeast of Harare, the capital.

Mugabe has called the occupations a legitimate protest against large-scale white ownership of farmland.

Earlier Wednesday, Hunzvi was found in contempt for disobeying a High Court order to tell his followers to leave the farms. Judge David Bartlett ordered Hunzvi to “actively strive to assist in the peaceful vacation by veterans of occupied farms.”

Police said Wednesday that two white women were raped late Tuesday on a farm south of Harare. The police had no information whether the incidents were politically motivated, but the husband of one victim said the attackers demanded to know his family’s political affiliation.