HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwean war veterans torched another farm overnight, abducted a black foreman and beat up his laborers as violence flared again on Monday in a bitter land dispute.
"The tobacco barns are burning on Dean farm," a farm support group spokesman told Reuters by telephone from the Wedze area 75 miles east of the capital.
"I just flew over the place. You can see they have killed cattle and sheep as well," he said. "We have also been told they beat up several workers on the next door farm and took the foreman away in handcuffs saying they would kill him."
Some 60 miles north of the capital, a farm manager, his girlfriend and another woman spent the night trapped in the 54,340-acre Forresters farm, surrounded by 700 veterans, followers and farm workers.
A source in the local farm contact group said the manager, Duncan Hamilton, had made contact to say the group was well but still hostage.
"Duncan just rang. He said there was lots of noise last night, with drums and the like, but they were OK," he said.
At least two other farms in the Marondera area east of Harare were occupied aggressively but peacefully Sunday.
The occupations came less than 48 hours after the leaders of South Africa, Mozambique and Namibia gave President Robert Mugabe a ringing endorsement for his handling of the land crisis that has brought the country to the brink of chaos.
South African President Thabo Mbeki told reporters after the meeting in Victoria Falls on Friday that international donors and specifically former colonial power Britain were to blame.
The high-risk gambit in support of a universally discredited Mugabe is designed to restore order to the pivotal southern African nation and prevent anarchy spreading across its borders to its neighbors and igniting the region.
Thousands of self-styled veterans of the former Rhodesia's 1970s liberation war have occupied hundreds of the country's 4,500 mainly white-owned commercial farms in the past two months demanding a return of the land they say British colonists stole.
A policeman, two farmers, a farm foreman and at least two members of the growing opposition Movement for Democratic Change have been murdered, several farmers and many workers have been beaten up and many have fled their homes for safety in town.
However, a small but loud bomb next to the offices of an independent newspaper on Saturday night was a reminder that there is also danger in the city.
Critics accuse Mugabe, in power with his ZANU-PF party since independence from Britain in 1980, of manufacturing the crisis to divert attention from the disintegrating economy.
Parliamentary elections are expected in May and support for his party is at an all-time low. Mugabe himself does not face reelection until 2002.
Britain and the United States are expected to agree to help fund the purchase of white-owned land for distribution to black subsistence farmers.
British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said on Sunday southern African leaders had urged Mugabe to ensure talks on Thursday between London and Harare were constructive.
Political sources said Mugabe had been offered a deal linking an end to the farm invasions to new financial aid.
Zimbabwe's black veterans leader Chenjerai Hunzvi told Reuters on Sunday there was no reason for veterans to leave land they have occupied.
An aide said he had addressed a meeting of ZANU-PF supporters on Sunday afternoon and met with representatives of the Commercial Farmers Union in the evening. No one was available to comment from the CFU.