OWN CORRESPONDENTS, Harare | Thursday
ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe marked his 77th birthday with an astonishing attack on the opposition, Britain and foreign-owned oil companies – who he blames for crippling the economy – and says he will retire only when his old white opponents are “thoroughly beaten”.
In an interview on state television, Mugabe accused the country’s white minority of resisting his efforts to build a non-racial society by refusing to share the country’s wealth, particularly land.
He also accused his country’s political opposition of fomenting violent demonstrations in a bid to forcefully grab power.
The president said the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was responsible for the bloodshed that surrounded legislative elections in June last year in which 34 people – most of them MDC supporters – died.
“They (MDC) are the one now licking the white mans boots,” he said. “We’re fighting for land and we’ve said that the rule of law did not apply when our land was taken away. We had to use the gun, revolutionary force to get our independence.
Asked whether he wished to retire after two decades in power, Mugabe, who has always been ambivalent on his retirement plans, replied: “As long as I am assured that those we fought yesterday are thoroughly beaten and that the carpet they now stand on, the economic carpet, has been removed from their feet and it has become our carpet,” he said.
There is speculation that the ex-guerrilla fighter – who led the former British colony of Rhodesia to independence in 1980 – may step down in favour of speaker of parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa and bring forward presidential elections due in April 2002.
Mugabe said his government was not to blame for a severe economic crisis that has fuelled opposition to his rule. He said the economy was suffering from low commodity prices, a squeeze on foreign aid, and sabotage by white industrialists.
Mugabe criticised the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for cutting aid to his country, and vowed that he would not compromise on his political policies.
“When you are fighting a just cause, you must be prepared to suffer for it. Even to die for it,” he said. – AFP/Reuters
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