A leader of Zimbabwe's feared war veterans, hardline supporters of President Robert Mugabe, on Thursday denied the invasion of white-owned farms in the wake of a poll dispute.

"There are no farm invasions in Zimbabwe," national chairperson of the War Veterans Association Jabulani Sibanda told SABC radio.

Sibanda said war veterans had merely gone to investigate claims that whites were preparing to "take back the land" after opposition Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai declared he had won the presidential poll.

President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF has been fanning the flames of the land issue in a bid to discredit Tsvangirai, whom they typecast as a pro-Western stooge planning to resettle the whites.

The Commercial Farmers Union on Wednesday announced that more than 60 farmers had been driven off their land, in a reminder of President Robert Mugabe's controversial land reforms which started in 2000.

"We've got over 60 farmers who have been evicted," Commercial Farmers Union president Trevor Gifford told AFP. "They have been chased away and left everything behind."

Gifford said a first black farmer had also been forced off by the so-called war veterans, pro-Mugabe activists who were at the forefront of the widespread seizure of white farms earlier in the decade.

However Sibanda said "anyone that had been thrown off the land, it is not by war veterans."

"Some went to farms to investigate the groupings of white people. There is no one that has been thrown off their land. War veterans are disciplined."

He warned against white people planning to take back farms given to blacks during the land reforms.

"The people of this country, they are prepared and ready to protect their country if there is an invasion, an invasion of any kind," he said.

AFP

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