"The whites in Zimbabwe, the whites of Rhodesian origin, have created their own problems. They had the chance, for instance, on the question of the land to support the referendum for a new constitution but they worked together with the British government, which gave them an immense amount of money to try and destabilise the country over the land issue.
"Unfortunately, we lost that referendum by 10 000 votes nationally. As a result, our war veterans quite correctly went directly on to the land because this could not hold off any longer. Had the white population supported the government and the new constitution, the land would have been taken through negotiations, not by intervention of war veterans, not by militant actions," he says.
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He says contrary to the media reports, only nine white farmers were killed in Zimbabwe, compared to hundreds in South Africa.
"If you study internationally the land question, you will find that our land reform was almost non-violent by world standards; our country is far less violent than South Africa."
IOL