HARARE, Zimbabwe (PANA)—Violet Mushonga, an elderly woman in her 60s, traveled over 185 miles from her home in Centenary in northern Zimbabwe to Harare to hear President Robert Mugabe speak at the Aug. 12 Heroes Day commemoration of the country’s liberation war dead.

She was attending the festivities, at a national shrine where prominent leaders of the war are buried, for the first time since the southern African country gained independence from Britain 22 years ago.

To her, and her friend Maria Gwatiringa who traveled with her, attending the commemorations in the past was meaningless because Black self-rule had not yet delivered what the war dead had sacrificed their lives for—land.

"We can now say we are free and truly independent after getting back the land from which we were driven off," she says.

Ms. Mushonga is one of nearly 500,000 landless peasants whom Mr. Mugabe’s government has earmarked to resettle by the end of this month, on 24 million acres of prime farming land being repossessed from White commercial farmers.

The veteran Zimbabwean leader argues that land was the main grievance which drove him and his peers in the 1960s to take up arms to fight colonial rule in what was then Rhodesia, and sees it as vital for Black economic empowerment.

He said as much, to the delight of Ms. Mushonga and other landless peasants across the country, at the Heroes Day commemoration: "Those who lie here struggled and died for a cause and that cause is fundamentally the land which must come back; which is coming back and, for our peasants, which has come back in significant quantities.

"No gold, no silver is precious enough for our land. Zimbabwe is not for sale to the highest bidder in Europe. Zimbabwe is for Zimbabweans," Mr. Mugabe said, referring to offers of financial aid from Western countries, particularly former colonial power Britain, if he toned down his radical land policies.

That was sweet, reassuring music to Ms. Mushonga, who, reflecting a deep-seated view among peasants in the country, said Blacks had waited painstakingly too long after independence to wrestle land from Whites.

"Imagine how much I could have contributed to the nation’s development, through farming, if this had been done soon after independence when I was still younger," she said.

Still, the mother of four, and grandmother of nine, is oozing with determination to contribute the bit she can to the success of Zimbabwe’s controversial agrarian revolution, which has put the country on international spotlight.

She is a proud owner of a new 48-acre plot on a former White-owned farm in Centenary, and outlines a 20-year development plan for the piece of land.

Ms. Mushonga’s enthusiasm and passion at owning productive farmland mirrors the overwhelming sentiments of Black Zimbabweans, who for centuries eked out a subsistence farming in poor, marginal areas. About 4,500 White farmers, most of whom owned more than one farm, controlled over 70 percent of the country’s prime farming land.

But the curtain is coming down on their land dominance, with Mr. Mugabe reiterating that August 31 remains the deadline for his government to complete the transfer of the bulk of the land to peasants.

"Our heroes would scorn us if we turned out to be a mere banana republic which waxes and wanes as pleases the powerful. They expect us to be brittle, very brittle when it comes to our sovereignty," he said.

Colin Cloete, president of the mainly White Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) said Mr. Mugabe’s speech was not encouraging, particularly his reiteration of a deadline for wrapping up the resettlement plan.

"It is not looking good, although he repeated pretty much what he has been saying all along. What is very worrying for us is that he said the deadline (for completing the seizure of farms) stands," Mr. Cloete said.

The CFU has appealed to the government to rescind the deadline while last-ditch negotiations continue, but the authorities have turned down the plea.

Mr. Cloete said Mr. Mugabe’s speech had also left White farmers confused as he reiterated his government’s one-farm-per-farmer policy, yet most farmers with a single farm, including himself, had been served with acquisition notices.

"There was a contradiction in his speech, in that he said farmers with one farm will be allowed to keep it, but most farmers who have been served with acquisition notices have one farm. These are the issues we want to resolve through dialogue, but time is running out," he added.