Zimbabwe's President, Mr Robert Mugabe, gave formal notice yesterday of his intention to confiscate 804 white-owned farms for black resettlement after the parliamentary elections later this month.
"Notice is hereby given in terms of . . . the Land Acquisition Act that the President intends to acquire compulsorily the land described in the schedule for resettlement purposes," the official Government Gazette announced.
It listed 804 of 841 farms identified in 1998 as targets for the resettlement of black peasants left landless by generations of British colonial rule.
Together, the 804 farms comprise about 10 per cent of the estimated 12 million hectares of prime farm land owned by the members of the 1 per cent white minority.
Mr Mugabe has said he wants half the 4,500 white-owned commercial farms for blacks.
The gazette gave a July 2nd deadline for owners to object to the land seizure, setting the start of the resettlement process a week after parliamentary elections on June 23rd and 24th.
The presidential spokesman, Mr George Charamba, said, however, that the government had 20 farms available for immediate resettlement and added that some families would be moved before the election.
Mr Charamba said owners could object to the process and the valuation of improvements that would be paid for, but not to the principle of seizure of the land without compensation.
The government last week passed a law giving it the right to acquire the farms without paying compensation for the land, although it says it will pay compensation for any improvements made.
A group of black men strangled, beat and kicked a white man to death in Bulawayo, a farmers' union official said yesterday in the latest incident of violence amid government plans to seize white-owned land.
The attack on Wednesday took place in front of bystanders waiting for transport into some of the city's poorer suburbs, an official of the Commercial Farmers' Union said.
The UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, last night called off a visit to Zimbabwe by a top UN official in the wake of the government's announcement that it would seize the white-owned farms without compensation.