Former Rhodesian prime minister Ian Smith said Sunday that his cattle and maize farm in central Zimbabwe has been invaded by a group of about 50 people, who were pegging out plots.

He was not concerned about the situation, however, he told reporters outside his house in Belgravia suburb here, as the invaders seemed peaceful and farming operations had not been disrupted.

"I'm not worried, I have more black friends than Mugabe," he said, referring to President Robert Mugabe, who took over power from Smith when Rhodesia gained independence from Britain in 1980 and became Zimbabwe.

He believed those who had invaded his land were unemployed miners from the town of Shurugwi, near his 200-hectare (490-acre) farm Gwenara, and not, as was first believed, veterans of the 1970s guerrilla war fought by black liberation groups against his white rule.

War veterans have invaded some 1,200 white-owned commercial farms since February, with the support of the ruling ZANU-PF party, in an often violent land-grab that has the blessing of Mugabe.

"Our information is that they are not war veterans," the 81-year-old Smith said Sunday.
"They have been told that everybody else in the country has gone on to farms and staked out the ground, so why shouldn't they try. "And if they decide to try, whose farm is better than that bloke Ian Smith's. Everyone knows him better than anyone else."

Describing his farm as "peaceful", he added: "There is no politics on my farm."
Smith's son Alec earlier told AFP that the group was "not confrontational in any way" and that normal farming operations were continuing.

"Our feeling is that this is nothing to panic about," he said.

"Had it been different, if they were destroying farming operations, (Ian Smith) would have gone down there to rescue things," Alec Smith said, adding that his father runs about 1,000 head of Brahman cattle on the farm.

He said the invasion differed from those that have occurred on other white-owned commercial farms.

"This does not appear to have been orchestrated by ZANU-PF," Smith said, referring to the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front.

Smith declared unilateral independence for Rhodesia in November 1965, declaring it a republic in 1970. His party, the Rhodesian Front, overwhelmingly won elections in 1970 and 1974, as government clashes with guerrilla fighters intensified.

In 1977, Smith allowed for black majority rule, with his party still in power, but was forced in 1979 to negotiate with Mugabe's Patriotic Front.

Mugabe was elected prime minister of an independent Zimbabwe in 1980 under a new constitution. He was sworn in as president in 1987.