Mugabe accepts white farmers' offer

Dozens of white farms have been destroyed since Mugabe embarked on his land redistribution programme

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- The Zimbabwean government has accepted an offer from white farmers aimed at breaking the deadlock over President Robert Mugabe's controversial land reform programme.

Pro-government militants have illegally occupied more than 1,700 white-owned farms in Zimbabwe since last year, encouraged by a government campaign to seize 4,600 white farms and redistribute the land to blacks.

The farmers have dropped the legal challenges to the takeover, which they say would allow Mugabe to proceed in a manner acceptable to international donors, on whom the government depends to pay out compensation for white-owned land.

In May, the predominantly white Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU) had offered to sell about 2.5 million of acres of land to resettle an estimated 20,000 black families.

Zimbabwean Vice-President Joseph Msika said most of the 531 farms offered by the CFU were already earmarked for takeover under the government's fast-track resettlement plans.

Msika told Reuters news agency the CFU proposals mean precious time will not be wasted in legal battles, "which only serve to polarise our society and cost us dearly through loss of production time."

"This (CFU offer) is a complementary programme," Msika added. "We are pursuing our fast-track resettlement programme, but we are happy to establish this new understanding with our farmers."

CFU spokesman Malcolm Vowles told Reuters: "We know that much still needs to be done, but what we are saying is that we can work within this framework."

Zimbabwe has been in crisis since February last year when self-styled war veterans, encouraged by Mugabe's government, invaded hundreds of white-owned farms across the country.

The land invasions have crippled agricultural production and worsened Zimbabwe's economic recession, now in its third year.