Maravi

Commercial farmers accuse Tsvangirai of playing down invasion

Commercial farmers accuse Tsvangirai of playing down invasion
Written by Kingsley Kaswende in Harare
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 1:45:13 AM

The Commercial farmers Union (CFU) of Zimbabwe has accused Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai of playing down the allegedly continuing farm invasions around the country in order to secure aid from donors.

CFU vice president Deon Theron said the allegedly continuing farm attacks in Zimbabwe were evidence that little had changed since the formation of the inclusive government.

He was responding to Tsvangirai’s statement over the weekend in which he referred to the alleged farm attacks as “isolated incidents that had been blown out of proportion.”

But Theron issued a statement stating that Tsvangirai’s statements were a clear attempt to “gloss over the truth to encourage Western donors to loosen their purse strings.”

Theron stated that Tsvangirai was deliberately playing down the problem because the government was desperate to secure foreign investment.

He said Tsvangirai’s comments were “absurd” that farm attacks had drastically increased since Tsvangirai was sworn into the government in February.

“It is like hoodwinking the international community into giving up funds by making them believe everything is fine on the agricultural front,” said Theron, who was arrested in March for video-taping the accident scene at which Tsvangirai’s wife died before police arrived.

Theron warned that if agriculture in Zimbabwe did not recover, then Zimbabwe would not recover. During an interview about the 100-day milestone of the Global Political Agreement, Tsvangirai said farm attacks had dwindled.

“We have investigated examples of those so-called farm invasions,” he said. “We have asked the minister of lands to give us a detailed report of what has been happening over all these so called farm invasions and the outcry over that.”

Labels: CFU, DEON THERON, LAND REFORM, MORGAN TSVANGIRAI

posted by MrK @ 12:47 AM