HARARE, Zimbabwe -- Two more members of Zimbabwe's political opposition were reported killed as white farmers Tuesday mourned a colleague murdered by government supporters.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said two supporters were killed Monday by followers of President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party.MDC spokesman Nomore Sibanda said one man was beaten to death in Shamva, about 50 miles northeast of the Harare Monday and another was killed in the capital.
The news came as hundreds of white farmers and their families attended a memorial service in Harare for David Stevens, who was abducted from his farm, beaten and shot last week by self-styled liberation war veterans occupying white-owned farms.
Maria Stevens, attending with her four children, including 2-year-old twins, tried to speak at the service for her husband but was overcome by emotion.
"I hope for the sake of the ones that have lost their lives, including David, that something good will come out of this dreadful and intimidating situation and that our troubled country can go back to its normal, happy self and get the change we all deserve," she said in notes handed to reporters.
The service was attended by about 600 people, including a handful of blacks and John Osborne, who was abducted when he tried to rescue Stevens from war veterans and was present when his friend was killed.
With his right eye still blackened and breathing with difficulty because of a collapsed lung from a beating, he told reporters: "It's over and I'm fine."
Veterans of the former Rhodesia's war against white rule have occupied hundreds of the country's 4,500 mainly white-owned commercial farms, saying they are reclaiming land seized during British colonial rule.
Stevens was one of at least nine people to die in two months of strife.
Another white farmer, a black policeman, a farm foreman and at least five members of the MDC have also been killed in the land-grab campaign.
Many white farmers have fled their homes for the safety of towns, and many of those of British origin are renewing their citizenship in preparation for possible flight.
Parliamentary elections are due next month and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, the first opposition leader to pose a real challenge to Mugabe in 20 years since independence in 1980, told reporters political violence could be the price of democratic change.
"This intimidation will continue. The MDC is aware of this burden and sacrifice. It will not deter our campaign. All over the world, when a people rise against oppression, the consequence is often violence. We shall pull through," he said.
Farm security coordinators said there was fresh violence directed mainly against black farm laborers over the weekend, but there were no new reports of land invasions or attacks on farmers or their properties during the night.
Acting Agriculture and Land Minister Joyce Mujuru said in Harare that war veterans had a right to reclaim their ancestral lands and the violence had come from the farmers.
"We want our land back," she said after a news conference.
Accusing white farmers of inciting their workers to fight the war veterans, she said: "These are workers who really have been attacking the war veterans. It is these workers who have been misled, misguided by white farmers. The war veterans are just retaliating."
Security on farms has improved slightly since Mugabe met leaders of neighboring states, including South African President Thabo Mbeki, Friday.
Political sources say Mbeki presented a comprise package which could be finalized at talks between Britain and Zimbabwe in London Thursday.
The deal would require Mugabe to return control of the farms to their owners in return for international funding for a land redistribution program and renewed aid flows.
Mugabe has amended Zimbabwe's constitution to absolve his government from paying compensation for land seized from white farmers, saying Britain has a moral responsibility to correct land ownership imbalances created by colonialism.
He says some 4,500 white-owned farms occupy 70 percent of the best land. Farmers put the figure at around 40 percent.
Mugabe's critics say the land conflict is intended to divert attention from the crumbling economy and as a means of crushing the burgeoning MDC in the run-up to elections.
Support for Mugabe's party is at an all-time low, although Mugabe himself does not face re-election until 2002.