Defiant Mugabe says West won’t derail land reform

HARARE – A defiant president Robert Mugabe said his land reforms had earned Zimbabwe many enemies in the West, but his government would not be bullied into abandoning the controversial policy.

Mugabe has seized hundreds of white-owned farms in the last four years to resettle landless blacks, saying he was correcting imbalances created by more than 90 years of British colonialism. But his critics say the seizures violated property rights and amount to racism against whites.Speaking at a state dinner for visiting Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, Mugabe said Zimbabwe believed Africans had to be vigilant in fighting for their rights and in their struggle for economic development.”It is well known that in pursuit of that vision, Zimbabwe has made many enemies in the West,” he said at the dinner on Monday night.”Your visit will, therefore, afford you the opportunity to see that our land reform programme, which Britain and her Western allies viciously oppose, has put indigenous Zimbabweans at the centre of economic activity,” Mugabe told Museveni, who ends a three-day visit to Zimbabwe today.The visit by Museveni, one of East Africa’s influential leaders, is seen as a show of political solidarity with Mugabe, and as bolstering his standing on a continent where he has enjoyed diplomatic support despite calls for his isolation by Western opponents and the domestic opposition.Mugabe said land reforms – which critics say have reduced a once regional breadbasket country to one now struggling with food shortages – had economically empowered a majority of Zimbabweans.The veteran Zimbabwean leader, in power since independence in 1980, said Museveni had been invited for a state visit to help improve bilateral relations that had been temporarily strained by a war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.Zimbabwe led Angola and Namibia into Congo in 1998 to fight against Rwanda and Ugandan-backed rebels.Harare withdrew the last of its troops last year under a UN-sponsored peace plan.- Nampa-ReutersBut his critics say the seizures violated property rights and amount to racism against whites.Speaking at a state dinner for visiting Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, Mugabe said Zimbabwe believed Africans had to be vigilant in fighting for their rights and in their struggle for economic development.”It is well known that in pursuit of that vision, Zimbabwe has made many enemies in the West,” he said at the dinner on Monday night.”Your visit will, therefore, afford you the opportunity to see that our land reform programme, which Britain and her Western allies viciously oppose, has put indigenous Zimbabweans at the centre of economic activity,” Mugabe told Museveni, who ends a three-day visit to Zimbabwe today.The visit by Museveni, one of East Africa’s influential leaders, is seen as a show of political solidarity with Mugabe, and as bolstering his standing on a continent where he has enjoyed diplomatic support despite calls for his isolation by Western opponents and the domestic opposition.Mugabe said land reforms – which critics say have reduced a once regional breadbasket country to one now struggling with food shortages – had economically empowered a majority of Zimbabweans.The veteran Zimbabwean leader, in power since independence in 1980, said Museveni had been invited for a state visit to help improve bilateral relations that had been temporarily strained by a war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.Zimbabwe led Angola and Namibia into Congo in 1998 to fight against Rwanda and Ugandan-backed rebels.Harare withdrew the last of its troops last year under a UN-sponsored peace plan.- Nampa-Reuters