2 More Backers of Zimbabwe Opposition Party Slain

Two more backers of Zimbabwe’s biggest opposition party have been slain, a party official said Tuesday, bringing to six the number of opposition supporters killed in violence that began with illegal occupations of white-owned farms.

Meanwhile, the land crisis appeared to have delivered a blow to Zimbabwe’s already ailing economy. The land occupations and the violence that has surrounded them have disrupted deliveries of the tobacco harvest--Zimbabwe’s biggest hard-currency earner--on the eve of the crucial tobacco auction season.

Only 7,000 bales of tobacco were delivered in advance of today’s opening auctions, compared with 90,000 normally, industry officials said.

White farmers were skeptical of government assurances that police would now provide security in farming areas. Armed blacks have occupied about 1,000 farms since February, and two white farmers with links to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC, have been killed this month.

President Robert Mugabe says the occupations are a justified protest by landless blacks against a few thousand whites who own about a third of the nation’s productive land.

On Tuesday, MDC spokesman Nomore Sibanda said two more black party supporters were killed.

David Nhaurwa was killed by ax blows to the head on Monday north of Harare, the capital. His assailants demanded that he prove his loyalty to the ruling party by producing a membership card, Sibanda said. MDC organizer Robert Mbuzi died of gunshot wounds suffered Friday after he tried to organize a party meeting northeast of Harare, Sibanda said.