Zimbabwean president Mugabe announces new hard-line Cabinet

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- President Robert Mugabe announced his new Cabinet Sunday, firing the moderate finance minister and keeping hard-liners who have spearheaded harsh media controls and seizures of white-owned farms in Zimbabwe.

Simba Makoni, the finance minister, had urged restraint in land seizures and firm action by authorities to end the political violence that has crippled the economy.

He was replaced by Cabinet veteran Herbert Murerwa, brought in from the Industry and Trade Ministry, the state Sunday Mail newspaper and state radio reported.

Mugabe had dissolved his Cabinet on Friday, a long overdue move following his declared re-election in March, but a major overhaul was not expected.

According to Zimbabwean law, the president should have sworn in a new Cabinet within 30 days of the March 9-11 election, which was condemned by international and local observers as deeply flawed.

Opposition officials have sharply criticized the increasingly authoritarian Mugabe for ignoring that and other laws.

Mugabe is scheduled to swear in the revised lineup Monday.

Ahead of the announcement, state television Saturday night praised Mugabe loyalists for their role in land seizures and breaking ties with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and Western institutions.

Makoni had called for devaluation of the Zimbabwe currency as black market exchange rates soared to more than ten times the frozen official rate and annual inflation reached 123 percent.

State television showed Mugabe, in a recent speech, saying he would not allow devaluation that was "only being advocated by saboteurs and enemies of the government."

Sunday's announcement said Timothy Stamps, the health minister and only white in the Cabinet, was dropped for health reasons. Stamps suffered a stroke and has been unable to return to his office throughout this year.

Jonathan Moyo, architect of draconian media laws that have seen at least 12 independent-minded journalists arrested and charged this year, stays as information minister.

Zimbabwe, with famine looming in its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980, faces growing international isolation. Analysts had predicted Mugabe would follow increasingly trenchant policies alongside the hard-liners who kept their posts. They likened the shuffle to "moving the deck chairs on the Titanic."

The government's campaign to take over white-owned farms has added to more than two years of political unrest during which about 186 mostly opposition supporters have been killed in violence. Among the dead were 11 white farmers.

Chaotic seizures of white-owned farms have, along with a drought, been blamed for widespread food shortages that relief groups say threaten half of Zimbabwe's 12.5 million people.

About 2,900 farmers -- employing an estimated 230,000 workers -- were ordered off their land by Aug. 8, but some 60 percent refused to comply.

Nearly 200 of them were arrested in the past week. The farmers, many contesting the legality of their eviction orders, face up to two years in jail and a fine.

Mugabe on Friday accused Western nations such as the United States and Australia -- which have called for international action against his regime -- of hypocrisy for criticizing his plans to confiscate white-owned land. He said they had a double standard regarding human rights.