Blast Shatters Relative Calm in Zimbabwe

Police monitored some occupied farms in Zimbabwe today as white landowners watched for signs of a break in violence after President Robert Mugabe met with leaders from neighboring nations.

The first day of relative calm was marred Saturday by a small bomb apparently aimed at the offices of Zimbabwe’s only independent newspaper.

No one was injured in the blast, which destroyed the facade of a gallery next to the offices of the Daily News, a fierce critic of Mugabe.

Zimbabwe has been roiled in recent months by political violence, particularly attacks on opposition supporters, and the often-violent occupation of white-owned farms by black squatters.

Farmers manning communication centers said Saturday that the mood remained tense but that violence against farmers and their workers had subsided slightly.

Invaders have killed four people, injured scores and burned buildings since the occupations began nine weeks ago. The squatters say they are reclaiming land taken from them under British colonial rule.

Police had refused until Saturday to intervene and, in many cases, have looked on as farmers and their workers were attacked.

Regional political sources said Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Sam Nujoma of Namibia and Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique had offered Mugabe a deal at a summit Friday linking an end to the farm invasions to new financial aid.

Britain and the U.S. are expected to agree to help fund the purchase of white-owned land for distribution to black peasant farmers.

At a funeral for a farmer slain by squatters, a minister accused Mugabe of sparking the occupations. The farmer, Martin Olds, was killed Tuesday. Later Tuesday, Mugabe described white farmers as “enemies of the people,” accusing them of resisting a government program to redistribute land to blacks.

Presbyterian minister Paul Andrianotis told about 500 mourners that Mugabe was the “criminal and an enemy of the state.”