Land Reform

Brazilian peasants ended a two-week ranch invasion, saying they expected to win land rights after President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva threw his weight behind reform this week. Vans and buses flying the red flag of the Landless Workers Movement, or MST, streamed out of the ranch about 25 miles west of Brasilia. MST lawyer Elmano Freitas said activists were leaving the ranch with a promise from Brazil's land reform agency that they would be given some of the property.

Beside a shimmering river in the foothills of South Africa's Drakensberg Mountains, a rudimentary settlement of timber, corrugated metal and homemade bricks is taking shape. Zulu-speaking Amahlubi people are building houses on land that white settlers took from their ancestors decades ago. They are tilling the soft, black soil to grow potatoes and corn. A few cattle graze on the hillsides.

Police in Zimbabwe rounded up 12 white farmers for defying an eviction order and arrested a retired white judge who had previously clashed with President Robert Mugabe's government. The farmers were the first to be arrested since Mugabe warned Sept. 4 that white opponents of his controversial land reforms faced jail if they did not cooperate. Recently retired High Court Judge Fergus Blackie was also detained. He had tried to sentence the justice minister to prison.

Black militants armed with clubs and stones forced a white farmer off his land in northeastern Zimbabwe, the first seizure since an eviction deadline last Thursday. About 60% of the 2,900 farmers targeted by President Robert Mugabe have defied the deadline to hand their farms to landless blacks. About 60 Mugabe loyalists surrounded the farm near Bindura, trapping Terry Hinde and his family in the house. The family packed up and left.

Re "Resettled and Happy in Zimbabwe," March 9: Ann Simmons and The Times produced a dainty piece of propaganda for the Mugabe thugocracy of Zimbabwe. We are apparently expected to glow with satisfaction on reading of the happy and prosperous black farmers who have seized the land and the success of the white farmers. Simmons even interviewed one of these happy new owners. One hopes for at least a few successes in the unfolding tragedy. Land "reform" is not new to Zimbabwe. Farms have been taken from white farmers in the past for "redistribution" to the black population.

African leaders began a summit in Zimbabwe with a strong warning to President Robert Mugabe that his campaign to seize white-owned farms was hurting economies throughout the region. "Of great concern to all of us is that, if the land issue is not urgently resolved amicably and peacefully, the economic and political problems Zimbabwe is facing now could easily snowball across the entire southern African region," Malawian President Bakili Muluzi said.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said he approves of a Commonwealth-backed deal to end his country's farm seizure crisis. Under an agreement signed last week in Abuja, Nigeria, Zimbabwe pledged an immediate end to farm invasions in return for British funding for orderly land reform. Mugabe told a news conference that he accepted the accord but that it still needed the endorsement of his Cabinet and his party's senior policy-making body.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said the threat of sanctions would not deter his controversial land reform drive and warned white farmers against attacking militants illegally occupying their properties. Mugabe accused the West of pushing for sanctions against him in a bid to protect the interest of whites, who he says own the bulk of Zimbabwe's prime land as a result of colonialism. The U.S.

Cicadas drone. A heavy mist shrouds the lush hills. Barefoot children using palm fronds as umbrellas scamper down twisting paths that lead from thriving fields of rice and corn to thatch-covered homes at the foot of the Himalayas. It's an idyllic scene. But in the distance, atop the highest hill for miles around, red flags flap next to painted banners, reminders of a guerrilla war tearing at this part of Nepal. "March in the direction of making a Maoist homeland.

The Zimbabwean government intends to resettle landless blacks on at least 2,000 white-owned properties by year's end, a state newspaper said Sunday, amid reports that authorities were moving poor blacks onto white-owned farms. Agriculture Minister Joseph Made said a "fast track" resettlement program begun in June will be completed in 10 weeks, reported the Sunday Mail, a prominent government paper.