HARARE, Zimbabwe -- An explosion shook the offices of Zimbabwe's only independent newspaper Saturday in a suspected bomb attack.
Zimbabwe has been roiled in recent months by political violence, particularly attacks on opposition supporters, and the often-violent occupation of white-owned farm by black squatters.The explosion, near the staff entrance to the building housing The Daily News, caused little damage but shattered the windows of a neighboring sculpture gallery. The building was empty, since the newspaper does not print on weekends.
Two journalists from the newspaper were held hostage for two hours by young ruling party activists and threatened with death April 6, according to the newspaper. They were released unharmed.
The cause of the explosion was unclear, but police said they were treating it as a bomb attack. They cordoned of the area as emergency workers and a military bomb disposal unit arrived on the scene.
Tensions have been high in the country, with critics accusing President Robert Mugabe of using the crisis over farm occupations to scare off support for his political opponents ahead of parliamentary elections expected to be called in May.
Ruling party activists seized two white farmers Saturday, holding them for several hours and beating them until police intervened for their release, the farmers union said.
At a funeral for a farmer slain by squatters, a minister lashed out at Mugabe and accused him of sparking the farm occupations.
The farmer, Martin Olds, was killed on Tuesday, the second white farmer killed in clashes with black militants and Mugabe supporters. Later Tuesday, Mugabe described white farmers as "enemies of the people" who had resisted a government program to hand over white-owned land to landless blacks.
Presbyterian minister Paul Andrianotis told some 500 mourners at Olds' funeral that it was Mugabe who was "a criminal and an enemy of the state."
Most mourners at the funeral in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second-largest city, were white but included the slain rancher's black farm workers.
The two farmers were snatched Saturday in the Bindura district north of the capital Harare. Ian Miller and his manager, Keith McGraw, were marched to their workers' village on their farm about 50 miles northeast of Harare on Saturday and questioned about their political views, said Tim Henwood, head of the Commercial Farmers Union.
Miller and McGraw were assaulted before police mediated and escorted them back to their homesteads.
"It is pure political intimidation," Miller later told the South African Broadcasting Corp.
Police have previously mediated in several standoffs since the farm occupations began in February, although their actions have been limited and they have even allegedly stood by while white farmers were attacked.
Mugabe has ruled out using the police to evict the squatters from the 1,000 or so farms they have seized, despite court orders that police should do so. He says the squatters are veterans from the war of independence protesting inequitable distribution of land.
Britain, the former colonial ruler, demanded Saturday that Mugabe's government work to resolve the crisis before it will provide any more funds to help a fair redistribution of land.
"The choice is the government of Zimbabwe's," Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who is to meet a Zimbabwe delegation Thursday, said. "The crisis can be resolved this week if the government of Zimbabwe chooses."
Since Zimbabwe achieved independence, Britain has spent $70 million to help distribute white-owned lands to landless blacks. But Britain froze the funding after complaining that much of the land went to Mugabe cronies. In a legacy of colonial rule, one-third of the country's productive farmland in the hands of 4,000 white farmers.