Zimbabwe plans to strip white farmers of more than half their land

HARARE, Zimbabwe - In a massive, racially tinged land seizure, Zimbabwe's government has confirmed plans to take more than half of all the white-owned farming land in the country without paying for it and redistribute it to 500,000 black families.

The government had already said it would confiscate 804 farms from Zimbabwe's white minority. But in a statement late Monday, Vice President Joseph Msika announced a sharp increase in the total, saying more than 3,000 farms will be resettled.

A top official sketched out the plan Tuesday, saying the army will be called in to help move 500,000 landless black families onto the confiscated lands before the rainy season in November. Procedures to nationalize the first 211 farms will start by the end of the week, preparing the way for resettlement of an initial group of 37,000 families, Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo said.

With the expanded seizure, the government now plans to take 12 million of the 19 million acres owned by whites, Msika said. He said the government will use a recent law allowing it to take private property without compensation.

White farmers have expressed shock at the plan, first reported by government radio on Sunday. Farmers' leaders held crisis meetings Tuesday to prepare a response, but they had no immediate comment.

The farmers' silence was in part a reflection of the massive confusion here over the government's intentions.

Monday night's announcement followed two days of hazy accounts in state media, which first reported the escalation in land seizures and then suddenly backed off. Earlier, the government said it was beginning immediate resettlement on nationalized land on July 15 but none has occurred.

Adding to the uncertainty, it remained unclear how the government could accomplish the resettlement.

The 40,000-strong Zimbabwe army, which is supposed to help, has 11,000 of its best troops backing the Congolese president in his nation's two-year civil war. And military officials admitted earlier this year that some troops were on forced leave to cut costs and that the army's transport capacity was only about 200 trucks.

Chombo expressed confidence that the army has the ability to pull off the plan.

''It has the vehicles needed to move people from one point to the other. It will also establish a communications center to ensure decisions are made fast and are implemented,'' he said in the government-run Herald newspaper.

The seizure plan is the latest episode in a six-month siege of white farmers' property in Zimbabwe, where the tiny white minority - most descendants of British and South African settlers from Zimbabwe's days as a British colony - owns about a third of the productive land.

In February, government-backed squatters started occupying more than 1,600 white farms, trapping some white farmers in their homes and attacking others. President Robert Mugabe called the occupations a legitimate protest against unfair ownership of land, though opposition leaders said he was just trying to boost his support among landless blacks in advance of parliamentary elections.

Political violence since the seizures began has claimed at least 31 lives, mostly opposition supporters and white farmers, and has thrown Zimbabwe's agriculture-based economy into turmoil. Farms disruptions by violent occupiers have cut the nation's wheat and tobacco production, and white leaders warn that further land confiscations without carefully planned resettlement on productive farms will likely trigger food shortages.

Zimbabwe's largest labor group said Tuesday that it will go ahead with a nationwide strike planned for Wednesday to protest the land seizures and political violence, but said it will shorten the shutdown to one day instead of three to avoid damaging the already faltering economy. The Commercial Farmers' Union, which represents the country's 4,000 white farmers, has said it will join the strike.

The farmer's union said it received reports that the militants occupying farms - including armed veterans of the bush war that ended white rule here in 1980 - have been instructed by Mugabe's government to step up intimidation on farms whose owners join the strike.