EVIDENCE that President Robert Mugabe’s regime is considering a plan to rid Zimbabwe of most of its white population has come as little surprise to an embattled and dwindling community.

But the stark language used in a document apparently drawn up by advisers to the director-general of operations in Mugabe’s Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) has intensified concern that after four years of land seizures, Zimbabwe’s whites may soon be facing a new threat.

The paper, which has been leaked to the British embassy in Harare and The Sunday Times, describes a sequence of events that would set the scene for the ethnic cleansing some analysts have long predicted.

It would start with a bomb attack on a strategic economic target in Zimbabwe. British explosives would be used and South African experts called in to verify this.

The outrage would then be blamed on “British funded terrorists”, says the document, which is dated June 8, 2004, and headed, “Solution to the White Problem”.

It seizes on a recent warning by Peter Tatchell, a former Labour parliamentary candidate who once tried to make a citizen’s arrest of Mugabe in London, that the president’s opponents in an underground group called the Zimbabwe Freedom Movement might resort to force.

Since Tatchell has threatened sabotage on British television, and the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), is shifting from passive to active resistance, the paper reasons an attack on a fuel depot, bridge or power plant using British-made explosives and detonators could also be blamed on the MDC.

The MDC could then be portrayed as a British-sponsored terrorist movement and the rationale would be in place for withdrawing Zimbabwe’s ambassador from Britain, expelling British diplomats from Harare and ordering out British nationals.

They would be given 48 hours to leave, their relatives who had given up British citizenship would probably accompany them and intimidation at roadblocks would encourage many other whites to go too, the document says. It suggests that up to 90% of all whites would be gone after six months.

The paper, which British officials are working to authenticate, weighs up the likely risks and repercussions of expelling the whites. The chief worry outlined is that Britain might intervene militarily or that neighbouring Botswana might serve as a base for an Anglo-American operation. However, that is deemed unlikely: the advisers believe Britain would eventually accept what had happened.

It argues that the MDC could be virtually exterminated, leaving Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF to score an easy victory in parliamentary elections next year.

The document acknowledges that there are problems with a scheme to nationalise land, which was announced by Mugabe’s regime two weeks ago. This was interpreted as a measure to get rid of more whites following the seizure of thousands of white-owned farms since 2000.

But it has prompted objections from black Zimbabwean farmers and from President Thabo Mbeki, Mugabe’s ally in South Africa. Many South African companies and individuals own property in Zimbabwe.

The secret service plan suggests that the “white problem” could be tackled more directly if British citizens were targeted.

It all rings ominously true to Jim Sinclair, 66, a former president of the Commercial Farmers Union. “There’s no question the regime wants to get rid of whites,” he said. “Whites like good governance, they demand honesty, they don’t like corruption. It makes them a serious hindrance.

“People used to say the regime would never be mad enough to get rid of the white farmers because the population would starve. But they did exactly that. They could steal our houses tomorrow just like they stole my farm.”

Zimbabwe’s white minority has shrunk to around 50,000 — down from a peak of nearly 300,000 in the 1960s.

The hopes of many that Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader, would take over from Mugabe came to nothing after elections marred by allegations of vote-rigging. Tsvangirai now faces a possible death sentence in a show trial on apparently trumped-up charges of having plotted to assassinate Mugabe. The CIO plan would see him branded a terrorist leader.

Run directly from the president’s office, the CIO is more than just Mugabe’s eyes and ears. It is also the implementer of his bloodiest policies.

Nicholas Goche, 57, the minister of national security who runs the CIO, is one of Mugabe’s closest colleagues. Although he has maintained a low profile, Goche is as ruthless as his predecessors, who played a leading role in the Matabeleland massacres of the 1980s in which some 15,000 people were tortured or killed.

Although the dispossession of the white farmers was carried out by a ragged army of war veterans and settlers, farmers frequently reported that their attackers were directed by men in suits with sunglasses and mobile phones — the giveaway signs of CIO operatives.

A source privy to discussions within the CIO said Mugabe believed the removal of the whites would draw the international spotlight away from Zimbabwe. “This comes right from the top,” the source said.

“The feeling is that whites are the root of the problem: they support the MDC and give money to it, and campaign about human rights. Moreover, they are so good at networking, getting information and spreading it. And they guarantee an uncomfortable degree of world attention.

“In Mozambique, where there are no whites, the government can get away with whatever it likes and the world doesn’t bother. Mugabe would like Zimbabwe to be like that.”

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