Mugabe threatens retribution against white population

President Robert Mugabe threatened retribution against Zimbabwe’s white population today, suggesting they were working with Britain to sabotage his government.

He accused the British of leading an international campaign to isolate the former colony and recruit support for his opponents inside Zimbabwe.

“The more they work against us, the more they express hostility against us, the more negative we shall become to their kith and kin here,” Mugabe said at the opening of his ruling party’s annual convention .

The embattled Mugabe, however, did not refer to the nation’s deepening economic crisis and a looming famine largely blamed on his party’s policies.

In an 80-minute address, Mugabe railed against whites, Britain and its Western allies whom he accused of ”nurturing enemies among us” by criticising his party and supporting the main opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change.

“We are the type of people who, if you step on our foot, we fight back,” said Mugabe.

Mugabe wore a baseball cap bearing the slogan Chave Chimurenga, meaning 'It is now war' in the local Shona language.

The white population in Zimbabwe stands at about 30,000 – less than one percent of the population.

More than double that number lived in the southern African country two-and-a-half years ago, before ruling party militants began a campaign to seize white-owned farms, sparking political and economic unrest.

Most whites are the descendants of colonial era British and South African settlers.

The government has repeatedly accused Western countries and local whites of funding the main opposition that narrowly lost presidential elections in March.

“They are the enemies of the people and our government. We must be on our guard. Our survival is an ongoing war,” Mugabe told about 2,000 ruling party loyalists at the convention in Chinhoyi, 70 miles north-west of Harare.

In his one reference to the country’s economic woes, he said petrol shortages that have left most of Zimbabwe’s filling stations dry, would be discussed in a closed session by delegates.

Delegates, most of whom are seen to be hand-picked party faithful, cheered and danced as Mugabe walked to the podium, but their response to his address was uncharacteristically muted compared to previous years.

Shortages of corn meal, the staple food, bread, sugar, milk and cooking oil have become acute in recent weeks.

The World Food Programme says at least 6.7 million Zimbabweans, more than half the population, will need emergency food aid in coming months to avert mass starvation.

Mugabe insists food shortages are the result of a drought earlier this year.

But much of the economic turmoil has been blamed on political violence and disruptions in the agriculture-based economy during the government’s program to confiscate thousands of white-owned commercial farms that now lie virtually idle.

Delegates laughed when Philip Chiyangwa, ruling party MP for Chinhoyi, welcomed them to “Zimbabwe’s bread basket.”

Once the country was known as southern Africa’s bread basket.

Now bread is in short supply across the country. Black-marketers charge at least five times the government’s fixed price for a standard loaf.

Mugabe promised to enforce a widely abused government price freeze on most goods to slow record inflation, officially estimated at 144% but seen to be much higher.

Reporters have also seen state grain depot workers selling corn only to holders of ruling party cards, some of whom then resold it at inflated prices.

The government has denied influencing food distribution to its followers.