(16 Apr 2000) English/Nat

Despite repeated insistence by Zimbabwe's High Court that the police begin to evict squatters from white-owned farms in Zimbabwe, occupiers defiantly continue their illegal campaign.

And the crisis looks set to deepen with reports that squatters have shot a white farmer to death.

Four of the man's neighbours remain missing.

In the absence of police intervention and protection, the short-wave radio provides a lifeline for white farmers in Zimbabwe.

More often than not, the radio is the only way for the farmers to keep in touch and alert others when squatters arrive.

The farm occupations, which began in early February, come in a nation where a few whites own one-third of the productive land while most blacks are landless and impoverished.

The squatters are led by men who claim to be veterans of the bush war that led to this nation's independence in 1980.

Faced with the land occupations, the farmers and their workers have had no choice but to form organised neighbourhood watch groups.

They are determined to defend remaining farms from the squatters who already illegally occupy more than one-thousand farms.

In Marondera, this farmer was informed by radio that a woman and her child had been assaulted at a nearby farm by squatters.

The farmer called his workers into a truck and they sped of to help the woman.

On the way, he picked up more workers.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"Squatters have just moved on to somebody's place and it got pretty violent. They attacked a woman and her child. And we now have build up our neighbourhood watch, so that we can react to such incidents to try and help the workers or the farmers or whoever is in trouble."
SUPER CAPTION: Martin Perreira, Farmer

Arriving at the scene, the former finds police present and the assault over.

The police had apparently arrived to prevent confrontation between the squatters and the farm workers.

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