Harare - The government on Friday nearly doubled the number of farms it is targeting for confiscation, meaning almost all farms owned by white Zimbabweans are set to be nationalised, farmers' leaders said.
The government said last July it planned to nationalise 3 000 of about 5 000 farms for the settlement of landless blacks. A new list published on Friday of 2 030 properties brought the number targeted to around 4 500 farms, the Commercial Farmers' Union said.
The new list, which covered 18 full pages in the state-run Herald newspaper, contained some duplications.
The farms targeted since last July cover about 7.5 million hectares out of 8,4 million hectares owned mostly by whites, some of whom own several properties.
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The union said the farms of 95 percent of its 4,000 members were now listed for confiscation without compensation.
"It's close enough to the entire number of our commercial farm holdings," said union spokesperson Jerry Grant.
The sudden spate of new listings this month comes ahead of a July 1 deadline set by the nation's Supreme Court for the government to restore law and order on farms occupied by ruling party militants.
The court declared the government's farm-seizure plan illegal under the government's own land-reform laws and called on officials to come up with what it called "a workable programme of land reform."
Last month, ruling party legislators passed a law forbidding the forceful removal of ruling party militants and squatters from more than 1 700 white-owned farms they have occupied for the past year.
The law allowed occupiers to remain on land they seized until they were officially allocated plots on nationalised farms.
Farmers leaders criticised the law as an attempt to portray some return to law and order without forcing an end to the illegal occupations.
Violence, threats and intimidation have continued against farmers and their workers.
In the most sweeping ruling against President Robert Mugabe's land seizure program, the Supreme Court said on December 12 the government had persistently abused constitutional rights and broken the law in farming districts.
The court said farmers and their workers had been denied the protection of the law from violence and intimidation, they had suffered discrimination on grounds of political opinions and their movement and rights of association were infringed by farm occupiers, ruling party militants and state officials.
It acknowledged the crucial need for land reform in a nation where 4 000 whites, mostly the descendants of colonial era British and South Africa settlers, own one-third to the productive land.
It said land redistribution must be carried out in a manner that sustains production and is within the orderly confines of the law.
Six court rulings against the government on land have been ignored. In a campaign of intimidation of judges by militants, Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay was forced to take early retirement, effective also on July 1. Two other judges have resigned.
Mugabe has described land occupations as a justified protest against unfair land ownership by whites. He insists Britain, the former colonial power, and foreign donors must provide any compensation paid to farmers for land he says colonial settlers stole from blacks. - Sapa-AP
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