GRIFFIN SHEA, Harare | Thursday
ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe vowed on Wednesday to continue his controversial land reform scheme, and told former colonial master Britain to stop meddling in the nation’s affairs, in a speech marking Zimbabwe’s 21st anniversary.
“We cannot be seen, as Zimbabwean sons of the soil, to be begging a former colonial power, Britain, for us to take back our land. And we say to Britain here and now, hands off,” Mugabe said at Independence Day celebrations at the national stadium in Harare.
“Hands off Britain, don’t continue interfering with the sovereign right of Zimbabweans as masters of their own destiny. The land is ours.”
Mugabe said 60_000 families have been resettled on 2.4m hectares since August last year, when he launched his so-called “fast-track” land reform scheme.
That number represents about half the white-owned land his government wants to seize and resettle with poor blacks, in a bid to correct colonial-era inequalities that saw whites owning Zimbabwe’s most fertile soil.
But the scheme has been accompanied by violent invasions of white farms by militant veterans of Zimbabwe’s 1970s liberation war, who have also been tied to political violence that has left about 40 people dead during the last year.
The farm invasions are part of the cause of Zimbabwe’s economic crisis, crippling production in the agriculture-dependent nation.
Economists say an enormous unbudgeted payout to war veterans three years ago and Zimbabwe’s military campaign to back the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo have also fuelled the nation’s worst-ever economic crisis.
Last year, at least 400 Zimbabwean manufacturing firms closed shop, according to the Confederation of Zimbabwean Industries (CZI).
Mugabe said in his speech that factories and mines will now need his government’s permission to shut down. His government, he added, will “not allow any viable mining or manufacturing enterprise to close for unclear reasons. Any closures will have to have the assent of government.”
“The welfare of the workers will in any case be the decisive determining factor” in whether an enterprise can close, Mugabe said.
The president told state television late on Tuesday that the government would operate any companies that closed without a justifiable reason.
Skyrocketing prices, constant shortages of fuel and electricity, and a 60% unemployment rate have turned most urban workers against Mugabe, whose support is based in rural regions of the country.
Most urban Zimbabweans have turned to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), headed by long-time labour leaders. That support helped the MDC win half the seats in parliamentary elections last year.
During the last month, Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF has tried to bolster his support in urban areas, with militant liberation war veterans raiding several companies and beating managers, in what the war vets said was an attempt at resolving labour disputes.
Mugabe said on Tuesday that he wanted to run for another five-year term in the 2002 presidential election. Mugabe has been Zimbabwe’s only leader since independence. – AFP
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