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WORLD
Mugabe threatens war with
Britain
By ED O'LOUGHLIN, Herald
Correspondent in Johannesburg, and
agencies
Zimbabwe's increasingly erratic President Robert
Mugabe has threatened to go to war with Britain if
it interferes in his wave of state-sponsored land
grabs, fuelling fears that the veteran politician is
becoming as mad as he is dangerous.
Mr Mugabe's ever-more violent rhetoric is stoking
a crisis many fear could end in serious bloodshed.
His latest outburst came as his entourage stopped
over at Nairobi on the way back from the
European Union-Africa summit in Cairo.
Mr Mugabe said he had told the British Foreign
Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, at the summit that his
country was prepared for war over the need for
reforming ownership of Zimbabwe's best land, a
third of which belongs to 4,000 white farmers.
"If they [Britain] are on the warpath, I told him we
will defend ourselves and if need be we can go
back to the trenches," Mr Mugabe told
Zimbabwean Television. "If they want a war to go
on, well they will have only themselves to blame."
Since the Government's humiliating defeat in a
constitutional referendum in February, thousands
of people claiming to be landless peasants or
veterans of the pre-1980 liberation struggle have
occupied more than 600 white-owned farms.
Local observers claim many of the squatters are
paid supporters of the ruling party.
Mr Mugabe has said they will be allowed to keep
the land after parliamentary elections scheduled for
next month. His government has refused to obey
court orders to remove the squatters.
Yesterday, Mugabe supporters occupied more
white-owned farms. A source in the white
community said four more farms had been overrun
during the night, and a fifth had been occupied
after daybreak in the Mutepatepa district
north-east of Harare.
There were no immediate reports of further
violence following at least 50 shootings, assaults
and burnings between Sunday and Wednesday.
At the weekend, police allowed a gang of 150
"war veterans" to attack a peaceful opposition rally
in the capital with clubs, knives and bricks.
Since then, the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) says, three of its
supporters have been murdered by gangs loyal to
Mr Mugabe's Zimbabwean African National
Union, including a pregnant woman.
This week a policeman was shot dead as he tried
to arrest "war veterans" who had seriously
assaulted a white farmer near Harare, and eight
paramilitary policemen have been disarmed by
squatters and are believed to be being held
hostage.
On Wednesday, the MDC reported a wave of
overnight arson attacks on its supporters' homes.
"It is a strategy of subduing the people of
Zimbabwe," the MDC's leader, Mr Morgan
Tsvangirai, said. "It is too ghastly to contemplate
that we can go on with this. If this is an indication
of things to come, then God help this country."
Mr Mugabe's critics say the former liberation
leader is trying to use racial hate to shore up
slumping support in the elections.
Land reform has long been a staple of Mr
Mugabe's politics, raised afresh whenever
elections are in the offing.
This week Zimbabwe's 150 MPs - 147 of them
members of Mr Mugabe's party - began pushing
through a constitutional amendment to confiscate
white-owned farmland and demand Britain then
compensate the owners. This was a key provision
in the draft constitution rejected by voters in
February.
Britain, the former colonial power, agreed to fund
land reform as part of the deal that led to the end
of white rule in 1980, but has since claimed much
of the land acquired under existing schemes has
been misused or handed out to Mugabe cronies. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com