Three more opposition supporters die in Kariba

Three more opposition supporters die in Kariba

HARARE (AP): Political violence has claimed the lives of three more opposition supporters and also threatened to deprive Zimbabwe's economy of its biggest hard-currency earner, officials said on Wednesday.

Morgan Tsvangirai, head of the Movement for Democratic Change, said two supporters died in attacks on Tuesday in the northern lakeside town of Kariba, and five others were injured - two seriously.

A third opposition supporter, from a Harare township, died from injuries received in an assault Monday. Details were not immediately known.

The attacks brought to at least 11 the number of people killed in political violence since February, when voters rejected in a referendum a proposal that would have allowed the government to seize white-owned farms without compensation. Since then, black squatters have occupied about 1,000 farms, and parliament passed a law allowing farms to be confiscated with no payments to the owners.

The farm occupations drastically cut deliveries of the tobacco harvest - which earns 36 percent of the nation's hard currency - to the tobacco auction on the first day of the bidding season on Wednesday.

Only 3,500 bales - about one-third the amount on a typical opening day - went on sale Wednesday. Once those were sold, the auction floors would be closed until more tobacco was delivered.

"Normally this is a joyous occasion, but the events of the past 10 weeks have made it otherwise," said David Morgan, head of the auction floors. Traditional opening ceremonies of the auction were canceled.

Zimbabwe is the world's second biggest tobacco exporter after Brazil. The product earned $335 million here last year. Farmers appeared to disbelieve a pledge Tuesday by Agriculture Minister Joyce Mujuru that police would enforce law and order in farming districts.

Squatters -- many of them supports of President Robert Mugabe's ruling party - have killed two white farmers with links to Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change party. But black supporters of the party have paid a bloodier toll.

Tsvangirai alleged police made no attempt to stop violence Tuesday against his party's supporters in Kariba, 370 kilometers northwest of Harare on Tuesday.

Ruling party militants armed with clubs and iron bars roamed the town, breaking into homes and searching for opposition T- shirts and flyers.

Tsvangirai said his officials linked ruling party lawmakers to the latest violence.

"We can't fold our arms while our members are being killed. Are we to turn the other cheek. Lives are being lost in deliberate actions by the state," he said.

Without police protection, the opposition group decided "we will have to devise strategies for our own protection," he said.

Farm workers have also been swept up in the violence. Squatters have beaten the workers and ransacked and torched their villages, accusing them of submitting to pressure from their white employers to back Tsvangirai's party.

"We are talking about a state of siege, a state of total onslaught of innocent civilians," Tsvangirai told reporters.

Mugabe has insisted that the occupations are a justified protest by land-hungry blacks against a few thousand whites who own about a third of the nation's productive land. But opponents of the government accuse Mugabe of allowing the violent occupations to shore up his flagging popularity ahead of national elections expected to be called later this year.