Many Zimbabweans–black and white alike–blame President Robert Mugabe for the attacks. His government has called for an end to the farm seizures. But Mugabe’s grandiose promises and disastrous economic policies have bred anger in the countryside. And now, with parliamentary elections scheduled for April, Mugabe is fighting for his political life. In February, just before the raids began, Zimbabweans voted down a draft constitution that would have extended the 75-year-old president’s term for up to 12 years and given him power to confiscate land for redistribution without paying for it. A chief reason for the defeat was weak turnout in the countryside–bad news for Mugabe, since impoverished rural blacks have always been his bedrock constituents. As a rebel leader, before he came to power in 1980, he promised to reward each of his followers with “a musha and a mombi” (a field and a cow).

Two decades later, thousands of those followers are still waiting. Meanwhile, more than a third of the country’s best farmland remains in the hands of roughly 5,000 white growers. The Mugabe government’s early land-redistribution efforts, financed by the British government, were marred by rampant fraud. Nowadays the regime can barely pay its regular bills, never mind land-reform projects. Harare has drained its foreign-exchange reserves, stopping the economy cold. Fuel supplies have all but run out, forcing factories to cut shifts. The country’s gold mines are little help: Harare has already pledged two thirds of this year’s forecast production as security for a $150 million loan from Germany.

Now the land seizures are crippling Zimbabwe’s most vital industry: agriculture. Tobacco, the biggest cash export, has been hit especially hard. Still, there’s no reason to think the protesters will relent. “We will deport all these whites masquerading as Zimbabweans back to England,” declared Chenjerai Hunzvi, a leader of the movement. “Our members will stay [on occupied farms] until they are given land.” So far there’s no solution in sight. The militants want land. The white farmers want fair compensation for it. Mugabe wants to stay in power. And the rest of the country can only dream of an end to the squabbling.