ZIMBABWE: A conciliatory attitude by protesters surprised one farmer over the weekend, writes Declan Walsh from Bulawayo
Over 1,700 white Zimbabwean farmers doggedly refused to leave their farms over the weekend, despite threats of eviction or a possible two-year jail sentence from President Robert Mugabe's government.
Mr Colin Shand, a 58-year-old farmer from Concession, 75 kilometres north of Harare, is one of them.
On Saturday, The Irish Times described how Mr Shand had locked himself into the family farm in anticipation of a lonely, potentially dangerous weekend. His wife had left for England, leaving the farmer alone with five dogs, one cat and Steady, the family's 68-year-old cook.
The threat of violence hung in the air. Earlier in the week the squatters on his land - black peasants, probably from Concession town - attacked him with stones and axes in his truck. He was lucky to escape without injury, and had started sleeping with a licensed .45 Colt handgun by his bed.
In the end, the weekend turned out to be a peaceful, if tense, time for Mr Shand and the other embattled white farmers. Fear of attack caused him difficulty falling asleep on Friday. At noon on Saturday, the squatters came to the farm gate and ordered him to meet them. He initially refused, but Steady persuaded him to go.
Screwing up his courage, Mr Shand met about 30 men in the farm workshop. He was surprised: the tone was conciliatory, and they discussed some misunderstandings that had led to the attack on Tuesday night. The meeting was suddenly interrupted, however, by the arrival of a pick-up truck carrying officials from the ruling Zanu-PF party.
The officials were visibly angry that the meeting was taking place, he said. They ordered the farmer to return home and brought three squatters with them in the truck.
"It's very tense," he said by phone later in the afternoon. "I really thought the settlers were acting in good faith, and wanted to sort things out. But those heavies just put a big damper on the whole thing." He spent the remainder of the afternoon watching the South Africa versus All-Black rugby game on television. "I turned the volume up full blast," he said. Yesterday morning Mr Shand woke to find that his water pump had been stolen. There were also more visitors - the district administrator of Concession and five other men, demanding to know why he was still on the farm.
"I told them I have nowhere for me to go. I am a third-generation Zimbabwean, I have only one farm and I can't go to England or South Africa," he said last night.
"And secondly, I have no money because I haven't been able to farm for the past 18 months." He showed them a legal notice that should protect him from eviction. Last week the High Court ruled that mortgage-holders, such as banks, must be informed of the evictions. Like many white farmers, Mr Shand is clinging to this technicality as his greatest hope for avoiding being kicked off his farm.
The administrator listened carefully, then instructed Mr Shand to write a letter explaining his case. It left him feeling hopeful. "He was very amicable, very pleasant. He was listening to what I had to say."
Mr Shand is also considering a deal by Zanu-PF lawyers, whereby he would keep 400 hectares of land if he agreed to sign away the rest. Other farmers around Zimbabwe received the same offer over the weekend. The umbrella group Justice for Agriculture opposes it.
At lunchtime, he drove off the farm to have lunch with his daughter and her family. "I needed to get a break," he explained. By evening he had returned to continue his vigil, due to last until a national holiday finishes on Wednesday.
Yesterday was Heroes' Day, the national holiday to commemorate the victory of black liberation fighters over the isolationist white government of Ian Smith. Today, President Mugabe is due to give an address at Heroes' Acres, a memorial outside Harare.
The white farmers will be listening nervously. They have sharp memories of how fiery anti-white rhetoric last year sparked a spree of looting on commercial farms around the town of Chinhoyi. They fear this year's speech could bring worse. Or at the very least, it is expected to signal how President Mugabe intends to end the escalating land standoff.