Worried white farmers in Zimbabwe are taking precautions ahead of anticipated land resettlements, after the announcement of a controversial land reform programme and President Robert Mugabe's new cabinet.
An official of the Commercial Farmers' Union, Mr Malcolm Vowles, said farmers were taking movable assets off their properties, fearing a surge in land invasions by so-called liberation war veterans.
Vice-President Joseph Msika had said on Saturday that landless blacks were to be resettled on 200 white farms and that occupying war veterans would be "shifted" from farms not designated for government seizure.
Mr Mugabe also announced the 19 members - 10 of them new - of his new cabinet following last month's general elections.
The leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, commented yesterday: "This government is like putting new oil into an old engine."
The war veterans' leader, Mr Chenjerai "Hitler" Hunzvi, whose supporters spearheaded the invasion of hundreds of white farms since February, did not get a cabinet post. He had said he expected one shortly after winning a parliamentary seat.
Mr Hunzvi said yesterday he and his veterans "are not comfortable because they have no representation in the new cabinet".
Mr Mugabe had openly encouraged the campaign by the war veterans, refusing to order them off some 1,600 white farms.
But with Saturday's publication of the land reform programme, Mr Hunzvi issued a direct challenge to the government by saying war veterans would not be moved from the farms they were occupying.
The new cabinet has 17 full ministers and two heads of department, and includes the former secretary general of the Southern African Development Community, Mr Simba Makoni, with the finance portfolio. Mr Makoni will have to deal with Zimbabwe's worst economic crisis since independence in 1980.
Mr Tsvangirai, who failed to win a seat in the parliamentary elections, had little hope for the new government, saying: "The real problem is Mugabe."
He added: "It doesn't matter what kind of people he puts into his cabinet . . . It doesn't augur well for the country."
Farmers say they have not been told which 200 farms are to be taken for resettlement. At the same time, war veterans have stepped up their threats to farmers, Mr Vowles said. "Part of the current phase is locking farm owners in their houses and saying they'll be released when removal lorries arrive."
One farmer was locked in by ex-combatants yesterday morning, Mr Vowles said. "The war veterans are going to be angry on several counts."