HARARE, Zimbabwe (PANA)�An elderly White woman protectively pulls her four-year-old grandchild close to her for safety in a coffee shop in Harare as two Black men take up seats at her table.

Jane Peterson is visibly edgy about her security and calls the waiter to bring her bill so she could pay and leave.

But she soon calms down, and changes her mind about leaving as one of the Black men politely and civilly begins to chat to her.

"I was scared. I thought you are part of the war vets (veterans) who are wrecking havoc in the country," she confesses to the two Black men, referring to militant former fighters of Zimbabwe�s war of independence.

The woman�s security apprehension is typical of the country�s estimated 100,000 Whites since President Robert Mugabe recently won re-election on a largely anti-White campaign crusade.

The murder of a White farmer at his farm in the dead of the night near Harare several days ago by unknown assailants has reinforced the security fears of Whites.

The government accused them of using their dominant control of the economy to fund opposition parties to oust it from power in the presidential poll.

"Life is not the same, and will never be the same again for us," said Ms. Peterson in a deeply dejected tone, referring to the entire White community. "We simply have to watch every step we take very carefully, lest we get into trouble with, who knows?" she added.

President Mugabe accuses Whites, particularly commercial farmers who control much of Zimbabwe�s arable land, of spurning his hand of reconciliation extended to them at the end of the bitter war of liberation in 1980, and of refusing to let go for national prosperity of their dominant control of the economy.

Although they only make up a mere one percent of the country�s estimated 12.5 million population, Zimbabwean Whites control as much as 80 percent of the nation�s economy, mainly derived from land ownership.

Repeated attempts by the government to tilt this in favor of Blacks, particularly ownership of prime farming land, have been thwarted by Whites, backed by former colonial power Britain.

But relations between the two sides terribly soured from 2000 when the government ignored local and international protests and allowed war veterans to occupy thousands of White-owned farms demanding resettlement.

Ten White farmers have been killed in the process, including the most recent murder about 30 miles west of Harare.

Instead of ejecting the war veterans out of the farms, the authorities launched the controversial land reforms under which the government itself was now forcibly acquiring White-owned farms and resettling landless peasants as part of an economic empowerment program.

This is what Pres. Mugabe used as his main trump card to seek re-election for another six-year term in the March 9-11 poll.

In response, the Whites mobilized en masse to fund the opposition to oust the Zimbabwean leader from power, for threatening their economic interests, particularly land ownership.

They also used their dominant economic position to create shortages of basic commodities in the run-up to the election to fuel discontent with the government.

This drew Pres. Mugabe�s ire threatening during campaigning to revoke the hand of reconciliation, and to exact revenge if he won the poll, the toughest he has fought since assuming power at independence.

Indeed, he has begun to do so. The government, in recent days, added nearly 400 new commercial farms to the thousands it has already acquired to resettle landless peasants, and said more were on the way.

"If the government follows through what President Mugabe said during the campaign, and I think it will, then our future in Zimbabwe is bleak indeed," said Ms. Peterson.

"Sadly, this will not be any better for Blacks either, because the economy will suffer and spare no race," she added.

But the government sharply differs with her. Officials said this week they were finalizing plans to create nearly one million jobs through accelerated land reforms in the short to medium term, and expect the economy to respond to the stimulus. And Pres. Mugabe is threatening civil servants with dismissal, in a radical reshuffle of the entire government bureaucracy he is working on, if they did not carry through his election campaign promises.

"Our civil service has got to be gingered up, in fact, we will restructure it so as to gear it for speedy execution of plans and remove all the sloth and dilatoriness in it and that means, of course, that those who can�t perform or take time to perform will have to go," he said at his swearing-in ceremony.

"Those also who are negative characters, who deliberately impede government programs because of their political inclination will have to go," he added.