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Tuesday, December 18, 2001 - Web posted at 2:27:45 pm GMT

JOHANNESBURG - South Africa's ruling African National Congress said on Tuesday it was sending a high-level delegation to Zimbabwe for talks that would include land reform and next year's presidential elections.

"We will make it known what we think of what is happening in Zimbabwe and what we think is out of tune," ANC spokeswoman Nomfanelo Kota said. She would not elaborate.

She said a senior ANC delegation will visit Zimbabwe this week for talks with President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party.

Kota told Reuters the delegation would discuss electoral processes, land reform and economic issues with senior ZANU-PF officials, but stressed it was not a specific meeting on the current economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe.

She declined to comment on any specific concerns the ANC had with government rule in neighbouring Zimbabwe.

South African President Thabo Mbeki said last month the situation in Zimbabwe was getting worse and may deteriorate further if presidential elections were not free and fair.

He also said South Africa had argued against a "confrontational" approach to Zimbabwe's most divisive problem -- the redistribution to landless blacks of farmlands owned by a dwindling number of white farmers.

Kota said ANC chairman Mosiuoa Lekota, who is also South Africa's defence minister, and Secretary-General Kgalema Motlanthe would lead the team in the two-day talks as part of a drive to extend links with other former liberation movements.

South Africa's Deputy President Jacob Zuma may also attend the talks, but this had yet to be confirmed, she added.

Mugabe, who hopes to extend his 21 years in power at presidential elections next year, declared "real war" on his political foes at the weekend and compared his party's political campaign to a military operation.

Critics say Mugabe's militant supporters -- led by so-called veterans of the independence war -- have continued a violent campaign against the opposition ahead of next year's vote.

Hopes for a gradual and peaceful handover have been dashed by land occupations and violence, which critics argue is part of a campaign to intimidate voters ahead of the March elections.

South Africa has stressed it does not support sanctions, approved by the United States earlier this month, as a means to encourage free and fair elections and a more equitable land reform programme in Zimbabwe.

The planned talks come amid a battering of the South African rand which on Friday fell to historic lows against the dollar, pound and euro as bad news from Zimbabwe conspired with tight liquidity to take the market weaker.

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