Civic groups call for restraint. (Zimbabwe).

As we went to press, the Zimbabwean police had stepped in to stem the tide of violence in the northeast of the country after a week of clashes between white farmers, war veterans and landless peasants.

The violence in Chinhoyi led to the arrest of 21 white farmers after they clashed with peasants and war veterans who had occupied a farm.

Civic groups called for restraint as the police arrested nearly 50 people who took part in the looting of scores of farmsteads in Chinhoyi, one of the country's prime farming regions.

Violence has dogged the government's efforts to accelerate land reforms. Zimbabwe's white population, numbering about 100,000, owns more than 50% of arable land in a country of more than 11 million people.

Police said they had recovered some of the property looted from the farms. The Commercial Farmers Union, representing some 4,000 white farmers, puts the damage at as much as $9 million

Zimbabwe, which faces its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980, is bracing itself for more hardships as Western countries threaten to withhold further aid. The approval by the US Senate in July of the Zimbabwe Democracy Bill which advocates sanctions against Zimbabwe, and moves by the European Union to impose sanctions, could worsen the hardships.

Over 1,500 farms have been occupied by landless blacks frustrated at the slow pace of land redistribution.

The Zimbabwean government intended to transfer five million hectares to blacks by the end of 2001 as part of its "fast track" land reform programme. Western governments, particularly the former colonial power Britain, have refused to fund the land programme, which they say, lacks transparency.