http://www.boston.com/dailynews/233/world/Land_unrest_leads_to_outbreak_:.shtml

Land unrest leads to outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Zimbabwe, export loss

By Michael Hartnack, Associated Press, 8/21/2001 14:49

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) Foot-and-mouth disease has broken out among Zimbabwe's livestock after diseased animals were released by ruling party militants from quarantine areas on white-owned farmland, cattle industry officials said Tuesday.

The Zimbabwean government said it has halted all beef exports to Europe as a precaution. The disease will cost Zimbabwe's struggling economy at least $40 million in exports, government officials said, deepening the country's economic crisis.

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

Ranchers warned the government of a looming foot-and-mouth epidemic after the militants broke down farm fences and drove the cattle, including diseased livestock, out of their pens, said Timothy Reynolds, who represents Zimbabwe's mostly white-owned cattle industry.

Ngoni Masoka, a top official at the Lands and Agriculture Ministry, said the disease, detected near the southern city of Bulawayo, could be brought under control swiftly. A ''large scale farm inspection exercise has been mounted,'' Masoka said.

Trade agreements allow Zimbabwe to export up to 7,100 tons of beef a year to the European Union and up to 5,000 tons a year to South Africa.

U.N. food experts have warned for the past year of the disaster facing agriculture in Zimbabwe because of the farm seizures by militants loyal to President Robert Mugabe.

The government has targeted 4,600 white-owned farms about 95 percent of land is owned by whites for confiscation without compensation under what it calls a ''fast track'' land reform program to hand over farms to landless blacks.

The opposition has accused Mugabe of using the farm seizures and stirring up violence against whites to bolster his popularity at a time of severe economic crisis ahead of next year's presidential election.

Pro-government militants in the northern province of Chinhoyi have looted and burned white-owned homes over the past two weeks.

-- Anonymous, August 21, 2001