MAZOWE, Zimbabwe — Grace Mugabe came here last week, but her visit had nothing to do with promoting literacy, health care or any other official duties that come with being Zimbabwe's first lady.
Instead, Mugabe came to personally evict white farmers John and Eva Matthews, a septuagenarian couple who own the sprawling 2,500-acre Iron Mask Estate.
Witnesses said Mugabe--who was accompanied by senior army officers, government officials and young toughs from her husband's ruling party--told the couple that they had 48 hours to vacate their farm or be arrested.
"I'm taking over this farm," witnesses quoted the first lady as saying.
Mugabe's husband, President Robert Mugabe, has promised that his planned confiscation of white farms will benefit thousands of landless black Zimbabweans, but so far senior Cabinet ministers, top army officials and the president's relatives and friends appear to be among the big beneficiaries.
During the last two weeks, Mugabe's security forces have arrested about 200 of an estimated 2,900 white commercial farmers who have defied the government's Aug. 8 deadline to leave their land without compensation.
With southern Africa already struggling with man-made and natural challenges including bad weather, disease and corruption, analysts say Mugabe's land grabs are endangering about 6 million Zimbabweans--nearly half the country's population. Millions of poor Zimbabweans now need international food aid to survive.
As the United States and other donors send shipments of corn to feed starving Zimbabweans, top U.S. and British officials say they want to work with the international community--particularly Zimbabwe's African neighbors--to isolate Mugabe, who they say rigged polls earlier this year to win reelection. Western governments oppose the land seizures, which are often violent and chaotic.
Mugabe says he is simply trying to address injustices of the colonial era, when blacks were driven off the most fertile land to make way for white farmers. He is expected to square off with Western officials this week at a United Nations summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Mugabe's opponents are also waiting for him in Johannesburg. On Monday, about 100 supporters of Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change, which is usually barred in Zimbabwe from holding such protests, chanted anti-Mugabe slogans in front of a convention center where the summit is being held. Protesters waved placards declaring: "Mugabe is an election thief" and "Mugabe is starving his own people."
