Harare/Johannesburg  - The legal battle between Harare and white landowners continues in Zimbabwe as President Robert Mugabe's government indicates it will prosecute 140 of them on charges of failing to vacate their farms.

"A total of 140 farmers are to be prosecuted for failing to vacate farms after being issued with eviction notices," the state-run The Sunday Mail reported.

The government had ordered the 140 farmers off their land by September 30 to pave way black peasant farmers but they defied the directive.

The newspaper cited a report presented at the ruling Zanu-PF party's recent national conference.

Mugabe indicated at the conference that he would not comply with a ruling by a regional tribunal that ordered his government to either return land to 78 evicted white commercial farmers or compensate them for the

land under the country's controversial land reform programme which started eight years ago.

Mugabe began his controversial land reform programme eight years ago. Its implementation was characterised by violence that claimed more than 30 lives as some farmers resisted eviction and clashed with Mugabe loyalists - mainly veterans of the country's independence war.

The Zanu-PF report claims that 278 farms owned by 13 countries, including Germany, Holand, the United States and South Africa, would be spared from government seizure and prosecution under a Bilateral Investment Protection Agreements (BIPAs).

More than 4,000 farms have been seized from white landowners for redistribution to blacks. Mugabe says the programme is meant to redress to imbalances resulting from British colonialism.

Mugabe's critics say the programme is to blame for causing acute food shortages in the once-prosperous Southern African nation. According to the United Nations Zimbabwe has more than 5 million people in need of food aid.

The Zanu-PF report also claimed that Harare had recommended 341 white farmers be allowed to continue farming across the country "as the land reform programme nears conclusion," while 97 white farmers would be allowed to continue running conservancies or private game parks in six provinces. (dpa)