Mugabe's ultimatum to farmers as election battle starts

President Mugabe yesterday gave his country's 4,500 white farmers an ultimatum: Give up your land or go.

Speaking to a crowd of at least 2,000 people at the ruling party's first election rally, 76-year-old President Robert Mugabe did not, as many in his own party had hoped, lower the political temperature by calling for land occupations to end.

Instead, speaking in Shona, he called for landless people to "continue to take back our land'' and said he supported those who have occupied about 1,000 white-owned farms. He implied that recent violent incidents during land sit-ins had been caused by the opposition party and by "acts of resistence'' from white farmers.

He told the crowd, in an area of Mashonaland, which strongly supports the Zimbabwe African National Union - Progressive Front (Zanu-PF): "If they continue to resist we are ready for hondo [war].''

In a more tempered speech in English, he said Thursday's constitutional amendment, calling on Britain to provide compensation for acquired land and absolving the Zimbabwean government from paying - would not be imposed arbitrarily. However, he said: "They [the commercial farmers] have to understand that when the government says it requires the land on which they are, then there is no negotiation about it.''

He said Britain had "a colonial responsibility'' and that it had only ever paid £30m - not the £44m claimed by the British government - towards the acquisition of farms at the end of white rule in 1980. He claimed John Major had pledged ren ewed help but the present government had said it would assume "no colonial responsibilities, especially those pledged by the defeated Conservative government''.

The constitutional amendment, which was initially defeated in a referendum, then pushed through parliament this week, was Zimbabwe's only means of forcing Britain to recognise its responsibility, he claimed. He denied having an anti-white policy, pointing to the fact that Ian Smith, the former leader of Rhodesia whom he accused of funding the opposition, still lives in Zimbabwe. "All we want them to do is share. They have 12 million hectares. We are saying we want six. We would appeal to them to be reasonable. Those who want to leave the country are free to go.''

Zimbabwe, which came into being at the end of white rule in 1980, derives 42 per cent of its foreign exchange from farm exports, chiefly tobacco and fruit. The country's 4,500 high-yield commercial farms, which are largely white-owned, are situated in the country's most fertile areas. Most of the country's rural black population is engaged in subsistence farming on "communal areas'', formerly known as native reserves.

Despite reports that President Mugabe had set 25 May as the date for the delayed parliamentary elections, he said only that the poll would happen when the country's demarcation review body had completed its work. Constitutionally, he must dissolve parliament at least 30 days before elections and there are indications that he will do so on Tuesday.

He said yesterday's rally, in an area of poor land with few commercial farms, was a "celebration of the victory (in parliament) over imperialism and colonisation. "All I controlled before was the tribal land. Wherever I went I was a trespasser."

The crowd, wearing Zanu-PF T-shirts, was at its most enthusiastic during calls in Shona for occupiers to "continue taking our land''. Earlier yesterday, a spokesman for the national veterans' association, which has organised the farm sit-ins, said the occupiers had no intention of withdrawing.

President Mugabe launched a stinging attack on the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). He accused "the white man who has not changed'' of using the MDC's leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, as "a puppet''.