Harare - Veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation war suffered a rare setback in their campaign to redistribute white-owned farmland, as police burned squatters' homes yesterday and black farmworkers fended off a new invasion attempt.
Police around Harare began a series of operations late on Monday to burn down homes built by people occupying farmland and other open spaces near the city. Police have previously been accused of standing by or supporting the illegal occupations of hundreds of white farms by the war veterans, whose land invasion campaign has the open encouragement of President Robert Mugabe.
Around 1,600 farms have been invaded by the veterans and their supporters since February, in an attempt to speed up a programme to resettle landless blacks on white land.