PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe yesterday declared that all locals
accused of killing white former commercial farmers since the launch of the fast
track-land reform programme in 2000 were immune to prosecution.
Addressing thousands of people during Heroes Day
commemorations at the national shrine yesterday, Mugabe said the former farmers
were killed because they had resisted a government-sanctioned programme.
“Yes, we have those who were killed when they resisted. We
will never prosecute those who killed them. I ask: Why we should arrest them?”
he said.
At least 12 white former commercial farmers were killed by
suspected Zanu PF activists and war veterans during the violent farm grabs,
which resulted in international condemnation, resulting in the imposition of
travel sanctions by Western countries angry over Mugabe’s wanton disregard of
human and property rights.
At the time, Mugabe told delegates at the Zanu PF annual
conference that: “No judicial decision will stand in the way we have adopted to
acquire the land. After all, the land is ours by birth. It’s ours by rights.
It’s ours also by struggle.”
Yesterday, Mugabe reiterated his call for newly-resettled
farmers to stop leasing their farms to white farmers.
“Some (white farmers) are coming back under the guise of
coming to collect their tractors or asking to work with the new farmers. Some
of us are accepting. They (new farmers) are being persuaded like ladies being
courted by men without even considering who they are dealing with,” he said.
Mugabe, however, said the government never intended to drive
out all the whites, saying those who left did so on their own accord.
He said only about 100 000 whites were still in the country
of a white population of 250 000 at independence. newsday
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