'White farmers are our enemy' By Anton La Guardia in Harare and David Blair in Bulawayo

http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000271261842766&rtmo=kL1ZoYAp&atmo=99999999&pg=/et/00/4/19/wzim19.html

ZIMBABWE'S President Robert Mugabe yesterday branded white farmers enemies of the state, hours after a mob of gunmen attacked and killed a second landowner who was resisting government-inspired attempts to force him off his property.

Speaking on the 20th anniversary of independence from Britain, Mr Mugabe accused white farmers of seeking to "reverse our revolution and our independence". His comments seem certain to intensify the rising political violence that has claimed the lives of six people in recent weeks.

Martin Olds, 43, died following a lengthy gun fight which broke out when a large group of gunmen raided his farmhouse, 400 miles south-west of Harare, at dawn yesterday. In a desperate radio message to a neighbour, he said: "I've been shot and I need an ambulance." The ambulance was reportedly turned back by his killers.

Mr Olds's widow, Kathy, described him as "a rock, a moral man of very high principles" and said she had no idea why he had been targeted.

Mr Mugabe's comments came minutes after a televised address to the nation in which he made conciliatory remarks about whites and said he would try to resolve the crisis on the farms. But he abruptly reverted to his now familiar rabble-rousing when questioned by reporters. He told Zimbabwe's state television that he had chastised leaders of the embattled white farming community who had met him a day earlier, urging him to end the invasions of white-owned farms by pro-Mugabe squatters.

Leaders of the Commercial Farmers Union had emerged from the meeting expressing optimism that the president would take action to defuse the tensions. But Mr Mugabe said he told the farmers: "Our present state of mind is that you are our enemies, because you have behaved as enemies of Zimbabwe and that we are full of anger. Our entire community is angry and this is why you see the war veterans seizing land."

The farmers' greatest sin, according to Mr Mugabe, was to have agitated for the "no" vote in a referendum to approve a draft constitution that included a clause allowing the government to seize farms without paying compensation. The referendum was defeated, but the clause was passed in parliament and was signed into law by Mr Mugabe yesterday.

The president's refusal to stop the violence against white farmers drew strong condemnation yesterday from Peter Hain, the Foreign Office minister, who said the current crisis had catastrophic implications for the region and for the economy of Zimbabwe. He said: "This policy isincomprehensible. It is resulting in violence and lawlessness and killings. It is an absolutely catastrophic policy."

The Zimbabwe opposition claims the invasion of some 600 farms is a ploy by Mr Mugabe to divert attention away from the country's economic collapse, drum up nationalist fervour and to intimidate his opponents before the forthcoming general election. Instead of addressing Zimbabweans at the usual Independence Day celebrations in the national stadium in Harare, the president read his speech on television.

John Makumbe, professor of politics at the University of Zimbabwe, said Mr Mugabe was scared of being booed by the crowds. In his speech, the president recalled that Zimbabwe's policy of reconciliation with whites after independence had ensured political stability and development and had been a "priceless export" to Namibia and South Africa.

But he said: "What we reject is the persistence of vestigial attitudes from the Rhodesian of yesteryear - attitudes of master race, master colour, master owner and master employer." He said negotiations with Britain on resuming funding for land reform would begin soon. "We should be able to find a way forward, but one that recognises the urgent need for land reform. We are determined to resolve it once and for all."

Learnmore Jongwe, of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, said: "It is apparent that the president has run out of tricks. He did not say how the government is going to resolve the economic crisis."