By Basildon Peta and Peter Fabricius
Harare - At least 10 white Zimbabweans were severely injured on Tuesday when militants went on the rampage in a key tobacco and wheat-producing town and assaulted white people indiscriminately in the streets.
In a separate incident, hospital officials said farmer Ralph Fenwick Corbett, 76, died on Monday night, making him the ninth white farmer killed since war veterans and ruling Zanu-PF party militants began occupying white farms at the beginning of last year.
Corbett's attackers broke into his Midlands home on Friday, tied his hands with wire and hit him on the head with an axe, the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) said.
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| "If you are white, don't even bother coming here |
Tuesday's violence in Chinhoyi, 140km north-west of Harare, followed a night of clashes between farmers and war veterans.
On Monday night, the police arrested 19 white farmers who had come to the rescue of a colleague who had alerted them to an attack by militants at his farmhouse. No militants were arrested after the ensuing clashes.
Four more farmers were arrested after clashes on Tuesday.
A delegation from the South African high commission in Harare was due to travel to Chinhoyi today to try to verify reports that South Africans were among the 23 white farmers detained.
The CFU said the militants were angered by the organised resistance of the white farmers and retaliated by beating up any white person they came across in Chinhoyi on Tuesday.
The government disputed this version, with Mashonaland West provincial governor Peter Chanetsa saying the farmers had ganged up and travelled to the farm to prevent settlers from tilling the farmer's land. The war veterans then retaliated in self-defence, he said, adding that two militants had been injured in the violence.
"It was a premeditated attack by the farmers on the settlers," said Chanetsa.
The farmers were set to appear in court on Wednesday on charges of public violence. Three others who went into the police station to inquire about their colleagues were also detained.
Agriculture Minister Joseph Made warned farmers last week to avoid any confrontation with war veterans occupying hundreds of farms, saying they were in a "very pensive mood" over the unresolved land issue in Zimbabwe.
Made also told a farmers' congress that the government would now take 8,3-million hectares of white-owned land in Zimbabwe rather than the originally targeted 5-million hectares. White farmers own about 12-million hectares.
Although police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena insisted that the situation in Chinhoyi was calm after the arrest of the 23 whites, farmers said the situation was tense.
"If you are white, don't even bother coming here because you will be risking your life," one farmer said.
A black shop owner from Chinhoyi agreed: "All shops owned by the whites are closed on the advice of the police."
A CFU spokesperson said two of the 10 severely beaten white farmers had merely visited the Chinhoyi police station to seek clearance to register their vehicles. Upon arrival at the station, they were assaulted by a group of militants, camped at the police station, in the presence of police officials.
"The police did nothing to restrain the war veterans. The two managed to flee, leaving their shoes and bags behind," said the spokesperson. He said four assaulted white females had sought refuge at the CFU offices in the town.
Ronnie Mamoepa, spokesperson for the SA Department of Foreign Affairs, said last night that the department had asked high commissioner Jeremiah Ndou in Harare to check news reports that there might be South Africans among the 23 arrested farmers.
"He informed me that, according to the Zimbabwe authorities, none of the detainees indicated that he was South African. However, he is dispatching a delegation to Chinhoyi to speak to the detainees to verify this information," Mamoepa said.
Asked whether the South African government was considering drafting contingency plans to get South African citizens out of Zimbabwe in case the racial violence worsened, Mamoepa said there were no evacuation plans.
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