Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has accused Britain of refusing dialogue with its former colony, and said he expects ties to improve after Prime Minister Tony Blair steps down later in 2007, state media said on Saturday.
They said that Mugabe, who had been at odds with Britain since he ordered the seizure of white-owned farms in 2000, had asked former Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa to try to broker talks with Britain in a bid to resolve their differences.
But in an interview with Harare’s official Herald newspaper on Saturday, Mugabe said he had asked Mkapa to step down because the task was ”insurmountable”.
”The Blair government is a queer government, and Blair behaves like a headmaster, old fashioned, who dictates that things must be done his way: ‘Do it or you … remain punished and an outcast,”’ the newspaper quoted Mugabe as saying.
”But we are hoping that with the departure of Blair, there will be a better situation there and they can be talked to,” he added.
The 83-year-old Mugabe, who had ruled Zimbabwe since its independence in 1980, charges that Britain has been trying to oust him over the last few years over his controversial seizures of white-owned farms for Africans.
The United Kingdom dismisses this, saying Zimbabwe’s long-running political and economic crisis is a result of rights abuses, vote-rigging and skewed policies, which have nothing to do with London.
Blair, who plans to resign later this year after a decade in power, refuses to name a date for stepping down but many politicians expect him to hand over to finance minister Gordon Brown in July.
MDC supporters arrested
Meanwhile, Zimbabwean police have arrested 10 opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters in the capital Harare following skirmishes in which four police officers were injured, reports said on Saturday.
”Four police officers were injured, one seriously, during an attack by MDC youths in Harare,” police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena was quoted as telling the Herald.
”The officers were monitoring and patrolling the streets of Harare following intelligence reports of possible illegal demonstrations within the Harare central business district,” he said.
Bvudzijena claimed the MDC had paid supporters to stage violent demonstrations in Harare, targeting police officers.
He said at least 10 MDC supporters had been arrested in relation to the disturbances.
But MDC spokesperson Nelson Chamisa dismissed claims that his party’s supporters were behind some acts of violence, which saw a police post stoned and windows at the Herald offices shattered.
”It has nothing to do with the MDC — the MDC is a peaceful party. We will not resort to violence as a way of liberating this country,” he told Deutsche Presse-Agentur in a telephone interview.
The police were the ones indiscriminately beating up people, he said.
He said a demonstration called by the MDC to protest worsening economic and social conditions in the country had been well supported Friday.
”Their [the police] reaction was to unleash violence on innocent civilians,” he said.
Tensions are rising in the capital ahead of this Sunday’s planned launch of a campaign by MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai for the presidential elections due in 2008.
Police have denied his party permission to hold a rally in the working class suburb of Highfield, saying they cannot ensure crowd control.
The opposition party was Saturday due to go to court to obtain an order allowing the rally to take place. – Reuters, Sapa-DPA