Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe insisted on Monday that white farmers must abide by last week’s government deadline and leave their land.
Hundreds of white farmers defied a government order taken as part of a controversial land reform programme aimed at redressing land ownership imbalances dating from colonial times and remained on their land after the Thursday midnight deadline.
”That deadline stands, as it is our wish that everyone interested in farming should be on the land by the time the rains come,” Mugabe said in a speech to mark independence.
Meanwhile, Mugabe said his government would feed its opponents, whom he dismissed as ”stooges,” in the face of a famine threatening nearly half the nation’s 13-million people.
”We shall feed all. Even the stooges and puppets will have enough. We don’t discriminate when to eating. They should all come and feed,” he said in a nationally broadcast speech, mixing English and Shona languages.
Rights groups and the opposition have accused the government of denying food aid to people who voted against Mugabe in the March presidential election, in which he claimed victory amid widespread political violence and claims of vote fraud. – Sapa-AFP