(Last Updated on July 27, 2013 by Editor)
Zimbabwe used to the breadbasket of Africa but was finding it difficult to feed its own people
Mugabe takes a swipe at white people
By Stephen Chadenga (Bio and Archives) Friday, July 26, 2013
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Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has castigated white farmers, saying they never tilled the land but used blacks, hence it was not proper for them to keep on holding to the commercial farmers grabbed from them by his Zanu PF party.
Mugabe mocked his main opponent in the presidential race, Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic (MDC) party that he behaved like a white person by “wrongly” thinking that by taking land from them (whites) food security would be compromised.
“He (Tsvangirai) thinks that we will starve because we have taken land from white commercial farmers. So does he mean to say all along he was ignorant of the fact that whites did not even hold the hoe to till the land.
Blacks worked on those farms. Even they (white farmers) never bothered to venture into maize production, which is the staple food,“Mugabe said.
He was addressing his party faithful today in the country’s third largest city, Gweru.
Tsvangirai, who addressed his followers in the same city last Sunday, reiterated that the country faced food shortages because of the haphazard manner in which the controversial land reform programme was undertaken by Mugabe and his party.
He said Zimbabwe used to the breadbasket of Africa but was finding it difficult to feed its own people.
“We used to be the breadbasket not only of the Southern Africa region but the continent as a whole. But we have been reduced to a basket case because of a Zanu PF land policy which does not allow for enhanced agricultural production,“Tsvangirai said.
Mugabe said whites should be reminded that even if they come to Zimbabwe with businesses, they are not permanent citizens. “Yes, we can co-exist together as you bring your businesses but should remember that you are just visitors here,“the 89-year-old leader said. Mugabe said people should not vote for MDC saying that it was a party fronted by white people.
He said his Zanu PF party was the” people’s party and the party of ancestors.” “You want to change with MDC… to change what, to change from the party of your ancestors…the party of your parents. Do you think you will change the colour of your skin to be like Blair (Tony),” said Mugabe.
Blair is the former British Prime Minister, Zimbabwe’s former coloniser. Critics, however, argue that Mugabe uses the race card in campaigning against his opponents with reiterated utterances that they are puppets of the Western countries.
Stephen Chandega is a journalist in Zimbabwe