By Cris Chinaka
Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe - Twenty-three farmers were charged in a Zimbabwean court on Wednesday with inciting public violence following clashes on a white-owned farm occupied by supporters of President Robert Mugabe.
The farmers had been arrested for allegedly assaulting the Mugabe supporters on Monday. Tension was high in this town 120km north-west of Harare after mobs of pro-Mugabe war veterans staged retaliatory attacks on whites on Tuesday.
As the farmers stood in the dock on Wednesday, one of them, 72-year-old Gert Pretorius, collapsed and was rushed to hospital. A farmer in the public gallery who asked to remain anonymous said Pretorius had a heart problem.
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Pretorius was taken in a police truck to a local hospital and was being treated by a private doctor while being guarded by four policemen.
The 23 farmers were all formally charged with inciting public violence and the case was adjourned until Thursday, when proceedings were due to reopen at 8.30am.
In Tuesday's attacks, witnesses said at least one white man had been stabbed and another had his ear slashed. Police said five settlers had been seriously injured in Monday's violence.
Pro-Mugabe militants say farm invasions that have been carried out with government approval since February 2000 are a show of support for the president's drive to seize 8,3 million hectares 12 million hectares owned by white farmers for redistribution to landless blacks.
Nine farmers have died in the violence that has accompanied the occupations, while scores of farm workers have been injured.
On Wednesday, about 200 youths chased away about a dozen foreign reporters and local colleagues from the court premises before the hearing, threatening to beat them up.
"We have grievances against the whites. Don't stand here because we will beat you up," one youth told a white journalist.
Witnesses said the farmers had been brought into the court through a back entrance.
Richard Lindsay, a first secretary at the British High Commission in Zimbabwe, was at Chinhoyi court to check out reports that some of the arrested farmers had dual British and Zimbabwe citizenship.
Local sources said the atmosphere on surrounding farms remained tense on Wednesday. They said two farmers were forced off their properties by suspected war veterans and supporters of the ruling Zanu-PF party.
"There's a bit of trouble going on at the farms. One farmer's wife was chased out of her property by a mob," said an official at the local branch of the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU).
He said the woman had been rescued by a neighbour driving by as the mob gave chase some 30m behind her.
The latest victim of the violence on white-owned farms was Ralph Corbett, 76, who died at a private clinic in Harare on Monday night after unknown assailants allegedly hit him on the head with an axe at the weekend. His hands were tied with wire and he had been left for dead.
The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change on Tuesday condemned Mugabe's Zanu-PF for the violence in Chinhoyi, saying it was meant to provoke a violent response from the public to justify a state of emergency or the cancellation of presidential elections due by April.
The police denied Zanu-PF was waging a campaign of violence across the country, or that there had been attacks in Chinhoyi. - Reuters, additional reporting by Stella Mapenzauswa
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