wfn.org | Mugabe sticks to land 'reform' program, Zimbabwe police quiz outspoken cleric

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Note #7381 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

13-August-2002
02295
  
Mugabe sticks to land 'reform' program, Zimbabwe police quiz outspoken cleric

by Ecumenical News International  

HARARE - Despite alerts from many quarters that his land reform program threatens the lives of millions of Zimbabweans, President Robert Mugabe has repeated his warning to white farmers that his government will stick to its policy of removing them from their land. 

The government has also applied pressure to church workers seen as undermining its plan, with the latest action coming in the questioning by police of the Rev. Tim Neill, the outspoken former vicar-general of the Anglican church in Harare, now working with farm workers displaced under the land program.  

Neill was picked up from his home on Friday by police detectives investigating the source of a document circulated to evicted commercial farmers recently. He was released later without being charged.  

The contentious document urged farmers affected by the government-backed farm seizures, which have often been accompanied by violence, to make claims for any losses they suffered from "any illegal action" by the government and the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) party.  

"The Reverend Tim Neill was asked to assist the police with their enquiries last night at home and at Harare Central Police Station and again this morning but has been allowed to leave and does not expect to be charged," his lawyers said in a statement.   

"The document exhorts those affected to seek whatever redress may be available to them under the law and appears to be protected by legal privilege. There is no suggestion of any use of force or violence."  

Neill resigned from the Anglican church last year over the election of Nolbert Kunonga as the bishop of Harare, whom he saw as an open supporter of Mugabe. Neill was a contender for the position of bishop.  

Since then he has been involved with Farm Community Development Trust, a charity assisting commercial farmers and their workers affected by the controversial land reforms in Zimbabwe.  

Justice for Agriculture, a group assisting farmers, is urging those who have remained on their land to stay put and seek legal redress.   

But Mugabe said in a speech marking Hero's Day - the day commemorating victory over white rule - on Monday, "We set ourselves an August deadline for the redistribution of land and that deadline stands."  

Mugabe's government had ordered 2,900 of the remaining 4,500 white commercial farmers to surrender their lands to black settlers, without compensation, by midnight on Aug. 8.   

"We, the principled people of Zimbabwe, we, the true owners of this land, shall not budge. We shall not be deterred on this one vital issue, the land. The land is ours," Mugabe told his supporters.    

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said after Mugabe's speech, "Zimbabwe is currently suffering under the effects of Mugabe's dictatorship with millions facing death from disease, starvation and state-sponsored violence. Yet Mugabe's message to the nation was a promissory note for more misery and death."   

The World Health Organization has in its most recent statement warned that devastating health conditions are putting 12?14 million people within Southern Africa at particular risk during the ongoing shortage of food.  

"Weakened by hunger, many people will die of diseases. They could have survived these if properly nourished - if they had produced adequate food or been able to purchase the food they need," said Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, WHO director-general. 
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