Kids witness dad's murder
2002-06-02 23:17
Harare - Zimbabwean farmer Charles Anderson (40) was shot dead on Sunday in front of his wife and family on a farm intended for allocation to a top government official under President Robert Mugabe's "fast track land reform programme".
Jenni Williams, spokesperson for the Commercial Farmers Union,
accused Agriculture Minister Joseph Made of fuelling unrest with a statement to the state-controlled Sunday Mail that black land claimants must "not waste time talking to former farm owners who were in their homesteads or working fields but start farming".
A government list, published in February, said Anderson's
378ha Dunmaglas farm was to be given on a long lease to a prominent official in the agriculture ministry itself.
Some 5 000 farms are listed for redistribution
to 300 000 black Zimbabweans. However, Morgan Tsvangirai's
opposition Movement for Democratic Change and the CFU have roused
Made's fury by alleging many prime farms are being "cherry picked"
by ruling party supporters with political influence including
Mugabe's brother-in-law, ministers, judges, and security force commanders.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a neighbour said Anderson,
his wife Cindy and two children aged 13 and 10 returned shortly
after 11:00 to Dunmaglas Farm at Glendale, after visiting neighbours.
They found the locks on security gates had been broken.
Anderson went into the homestead where he found four intruders.
He was shot fatally in the head, said the neighbour.
The intruders overturned a farm truck as they tried to flee with loot, said the neighbour.
Police Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena hung up when
phoned for comment about the incident. No other police or
government spokesperson were available.
Williams said Made's latest encouragement to land claimants "created the environment that exists today in these farms, of people taking the law into their own hands".
The neighbour said police failed to respond to requests to go to the scene of the murder for over two hours after the shooting.
"From the way in which the house has been ransacked it looks as though it is pure robbery, at the moment," he said. There were no squatters on the farm, he said. - Sapa-DPA
- SAPA