Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum: Report on violence against peaceful protestors in Harare million for this purpose, although the Chairman of the War Veterans Association, Dr Chenjerai Hunzvi 3 complained that this amount was inadequate. In early March war veterans together with many young people started to invade white owned farms. They proclaimed that they were going to take back the land that had been stolen from the indigenous people of Zimbabwe by the white settlers after Zimbabwe had been colonised. The white farms that were particularly targeted belonged to farmers who had allegedly campaigned against the draft constitution, who supported the MDC or had successfully resisted by legal action previous efforts to take away farms. The farmers believed that the leadership of ZANU (PF) was orchestrating this whole campaign of farm occupation in order to drum up support for the ruling party whose popularity had been declining. 4 They allege that the occupiers have been transported to the farms in various types of government vehicles and that these trucks have delivered regular supplies of food to the occupiers and that these persons are being paid wages of between $50 and $200. 1.4 Violence and intimidation In recent weeks numerous threatening and intimidatory utterances have been made by government officials and persons connected with government. In mid-March one of the leaders of the National Liberation War Veterans Association threatened to use violence to overthrow the MDC if it won the upcoming election. Andrew Ndlovu5 said that the war veterans would never allow the country “to go back to Smith” and that if they did come back to power they would “declare a military government”. Ndlovu said the war fighters had stashed arms in caches all over the country. “We will get arms from government armouries. We are a reserve army and we have the right to use the arms to defend the government of ZANU(PF). We will invade military camps just as we have gone to the farms.” 6 This statement amounts to treason as Ndlovu is in effect saying that if MDC is democratically elected, the war veterans will then overthrow it by the use of force. No government leaders have seen fit to condemn Ndlovu for advocating treason and the police have turned a blind eye to the commission of a serious criminal offence by Ndlovu. A few days later speaking in Shona at a ceremony relating to the opening of the water pipeline between the Pungwe and Mutare, President Mugabe said: “Those who try to cause disunity among our people must watch out because death will befall them.” 7 Towards the end of March President Mugabe threatened violence against white farmers. Talking about the farm invasions Mugabe said that they had largely been peaceful with no major incidents of violence reported. He said: “There have been very few cases of violence, but if farmers start to be angry and start to be violent, then of course they will get that medicine delivered to them. And it can be very, very, very severe, but we don’t want it to get there.” 8 This was subsequently reiterated when President Mugabe urged white farmers not to seek confrontation with the war veterans as this could result in them getting hurt.9 In actual fact the white farmers had tried hard to behave in a way that would not antagonise the war veterans and the ZANU (PF) youths who were accompanying them. The Commercial Farmers Union called on farm owners to exercise maximum restraint and avoid any violence. At first the persons occupying these farms, although threatening in their words and gestures, were relatively non-violent in their actions. Since the end of March, however, they have become increasingly aggressive and there have been numerous reported cases of beatings of farm labourers and white farmers and the holding hostage of various people. At least two white farmers have been seriously injured as a result of beatings administered by groups of “war veterans”. 1.5 Inaction of the police When the invasions started to occur the Police Commissioner washed his hands of the matter. He said that the police could not act because the matter was political. 10 The President denied that the government had encouraged these farm invasions but said he would not intervene in this matter for as long as the war -3-