Zimbabwe farm violence continues

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe said Sunday that he approves of a Commonwealth-backed deal to end his country's farm seizure crisis. However, there were reports of new violence in the north of the country. \nUnder an agreement signed last week in Abuja, Nigeria, Zimbabwe pledged an immediate end to violence and farm invasions in return for British funding for orderly land reform. \nMugabe, who arrived back Sunday from Libya where he had been on a state visit, told a pressconference that he accepted the accord, but that it still needed the endorsement of his Cabinet and then his party's senior policy-making body. \n"I do not see these two authorities rejecting it really, because it confirms what we have been doing and affirms our position and enables Britain to act as a partner," he said. \n"For the first time we speak the same language," he added. "It is a victory for us and for the farmers who need to be compensated." \nMeanwhile, there were reports of further violence on white-owned farms in the north of the country Sunday. \nFamer representatives in the Chinhoyi-Mvurwi area, 100 miles north of Harare, said there had been a massive upsurge in land invasions since the accord was announced Thursday. \nThe Commercial Farmers' Union said militants had occupied white-owned properties, and begun building huts and cutting down trees for firewood. \nA 70-year-old farmer and his family were besieged on their farm by a crowd of between 50 and 100 invaders, some armed with axes and clubs, a woman related to the farmer said, speaking on condition of anonymity. \nPolice apparently refused to act against the invaders who wanted the farmer to abandon his property immediately, the woman said. Mugabe has denied accusations that police ignore appeals for help from white farmers. \nEighteen months of violent land seizures have bought Zimbabwe's economy to its knees. Nine farmers have died in the violence. \nMugabe, who plans to fight presidential elections next April after 22 years in power, has maintained that Britain, Zimbabwe's former colonial master, must compensate 5,000 whites whose farms he wants to redistribute to black Zimbabweans. \nMeanwhile local elections continued Sunday in Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo, where opposition members claimed massive ballot rigging by Mugabe's ruling party. \nA lawmaker and several supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change were arrested after making a video recording of 19 buses arriving in the city packed with ruling party supporters, who they alleged had been brought in to swing the vote. They were later freed.