July 2001 Africa News Headlines

Tuesday, July 17, 2001 - Web posted at 10:32:59 GMT

White Zim farmer kills would-be settler

HARARE - A white Zimbabwean farmer ran over and killed a would-be settler and dragged the body for several meters under his van before dumping it at the roadside in the east of the country, police said yesterday.

Febian Mapenzauswa, 31, had just arrived at Tara Farm in Odzi near the town of Mutare on Saturday morning when Phillip Bezuidenhout deliberately drove towards and ran over Mapenzauswa at high speed, a police spokesman told AFP.

Bezuidenhout, 51, has been arrested and faces murder charges.

He was said to strongly oppose the designation of his farm by President Robert Mugabe's government for acquisition and resettling of landless blacks.

Police said Bezuidenhout initially drove towards the victim and other people at the farm forcing the the group to scuttle away.

When he missed them, he reportedly made a U-turn, sped towards Mapenzauswa and knocked him down.

"He (the white farmer) was apparently incensed by the presence of the visitors on his farm and he drove recklessly ... and hit Mapenzauswa," police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena told AFP.

Bezuidenhout had allegedly threatened to deal with the new occupiers and was reportedly overheard Saturday saying he would kill 15 blacks, according to state media.

The tragedy is the latest in a bitter dispute between landless blacks and white farmer owners, which has seen bloodshed and the occupation of farms by self-styled veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation war since early last year.

"This is a callous, premeditated, cold-blooded murder which smacks of the KuKlux Klan-type of murders done in the US and South Africa," Information Minister Jonathan Moyo said.

The government is trying to correct colonial imbalances which left white Zimbabweans - less than one per cent of the population - owning some 70 per cent of the land of the country's prime farmland.

The government of the former British colony, which won independence in 1980, has earmarked more than 5 000 white-owned farms for resettling of landless blacks.

The land reform campaign launched last year, ahead of legislative polls, claimed some 34 lives, among them those of opposition supporters and four white farmers. - Nampa-Sapa-AFP

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