(NEWZIMBABWE) CFU says PM 'playing a game'

CFU says PM 'playing a game'
by
23/06/2009 00:00:00

THE Commercial Farmers’ Union accused Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai of “playing a game” last night after he said on a visit to England that reports of fresh farm invasions were exaggerated.

Tsvangirai has faced a torrent of questions about farm invasions since arriving in the United Kingdom last Friday. On Sunday, he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “The incidence of so-called farm invasions … I can count them.”

The Prime Minister said there was “no explosion” of farm grabs. “It’s not like we have started all over again to disrupt farm production.”

Once again on Monday, at a joint press conference, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown committed £5 million in aid to Zimbabwe but demanded an “immediate stop to land seizures”.



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Trevor Gifford, the president of the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), told SW Radio Africa on Monday night that Tsvangirai was “playing a game” in order to raise financial support for the unity government.

“The government has always wanted the remaining commercial, white farmers off farms. Farmers are being persecuted and abused in farm attacks that have been all but legalised in terms of the law, because of offer letters,” Gifford said.

President Robert Mugabe has previously said that white farmers are refusing to leave land legally acquired for resettlement by the government. The unity government says new farmers turning up to claim their allocated land are facing resistance from the former white land owners who then complain of “fresh farm invasions”.

Tsvangirai, concluding his world tour to raise political and financial support for the government, has been met with scepticism by western leaders who question President Mugabe’s commitment to democratic reforms.

The Prime Minister leaves the UK for France on Wednesday, his last stop before returning home.