Mugabe speaks out to defend reform plan in Zimbabwe

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- In a rare interview with foreign journalists, President Robert Mugabe defended Zimbabwe's land redistribution program Thursday and denied that his seizure of white-owned commercial farms had worsened the nation's hunger crisis.

"It's absolute nonsense," he said, describing his program to redistribute the land to blacks as an effort to better the lives of the poor. "If anything, it's the only way you can empower people to produce, not just enough for subsistence, but more. To enable them to enjoy life."

Zimbabwe faces its worst hunger crisis in a decade with an estimated 6 million of the nation's 12.5 million people at risk of starvation. The World Food Program has blamed the crisis on a drought during the growing season and on Mugabe's land program, which has crippled the commercial farming industry in a nation that was once the breadbasket of southern Africa.

Last month, 2,900 white commercial farmers were ordered to leave their land, though some had crops in their fields. Many disobeyed the order and about 300 were arrested. Most were freed on bail but have been forbidden to return.

Everyone gets land

Mugabe said Thursday he had no intention of leaving anyone landless. White farmers, some of whom own several large farms, would be allowed to keep one farm of "appropriate size."

"We have said and sworn that no one should go without land, but they want much more, greedy, greedy, greedy colonialists. We cannot satisfy their greed at the expense of the rest of the people. We want to distribute land fairly and justly," he said.

However, many of those being evicted only owned one farm, and many of those farms were relatively small, said Jenni Williams, spokeswoman for Justice for Agriculture, a farmers' support group. Critics also have charged that the best seized land has gone to politicians, military and police officers and Mugabe supporters instead of the poor.

Mugabe dismissed the farmers' criticism, accusing them of using "Blair tactics," a swipe at British Prime Minister Tony Blair, leader of the former colonial power here, who has condemned Mugabe as a despot.

"What the farmers are saying to the world is that they are being evicted. We are not evicting them from the land that we allow them to stay on," Mugabe said.

Mugabe has shunned foreign journalists over the past few years, accusing them of bias against his regime. In recent months, he has refused to allow most of them into the country.

But Thursday, he joked with four foreign reporters before his meeting with WFP head James Morris. He said he was thrilled at the reception he got Monday at the World Summit in neighboring South Africa, when he gave a defense of his government's policies.