Independent Online SA / SAPA

 

November 26, 2001

 

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Anthea Bradley with her husband, Alan

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Harare - A farmer was in a coma in a Harare hospital on Monday after he and his family came under attack while travelling in their car on Sunday, Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU) officials said.

Alan Bradley, 36, was in a stable condition in the intensive care unit of Harare's Avenues Clinic with a collapsed lung.

A bullet punctured one of the car's side windows, passed in front of his wife Anthea and struck him in the arm before it disintegrated in his right lung.

The couple's son, Mitchell, who was sleeping on his father's lap was not hurt.

"How it missed him (Mitchell), I have no idea," said a close relative who asked not to be named.

The motive for the shooting was not criminal, said Guy Watson-Smith, the provincial chairperson of the CFU.

"It was to take him (Bradley) out," he said.

The couple were nearing their farm, Royal Visit, in the Virginia district about 120km east of Harare when Mrs Bradley saw a pile of branches in the road, about 200m from the farm's security gate.

When she stopped, she saw a man step from behind a tree with what appeared to be a .303 rifle.

"Alan was shot at point blank range," said Watson-Smith.

"The bullet went through the window on Anthea's side, missed her and hit Alan.

"She had the presence of mind to put her foot down and she drove through the roadblock, and managed to get through to the homestead. The assailant disappeared."

Mrs Bradley alerted police and farmers in the district via their farm security radio network and neighbours reacted immediately.

"It took police more than two hours to get there. They weren't in any particular hurry," said Watson-Smith.

During the night, several roadblocks consisting of logs were set up on the main road through the district.

"I don't know who by or for what purpose."

The latest attack follows a 21-month campaign of violence and harassment against the country's community of about 4 200 white farmers after President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF began its land redistribution programme.

Thirty-nine farm workers and nine farmers have been killed.

In December last year Henry Elsworth was shot and killed when he stopped to open his farm gate.

In April that year, David Stevens was murdered in the Virginia district. He was the first white farmer to be killed after the land invasions began.

Relatives said invaders had settled on the Bradleys' farm and there had been friction between the farmer and the squatters' leader.

Bradley had drawn up an agreement that allowed both sides to farm on different parts of the land.

"Alan got on well with the settlers, and they were happy for him to stay on the farm. But the war veteran leading them had it in for him, and was violently opposed to the family staying on their farm."

Scores of farmers have been driven off their properties in recent months by self-styled war veterans, while hundreds have been forced to stop all farming activities and have been confined to their homes.

Earlier in November, Mugabe passed a decree which gave him the right to evict farmers with three months' notice and without first seeking a court order.

Zimbabwe has appealed to the international community for food aid because of a decline in food production which has led to forecasts of a famine in a country that was once called "the breadbasket of Africa". - Sapa

 

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