The Zimbabwean government has stepped up a campaign to discredit white farmers. It implicitly accused them of being behind a looting spree on their own farms, amid fears of further racial violence in the southern African state.

Zimbabwe's annualised inflation rate shot up to a record 70.1 per cent in July from 64.4 per cent in June, according to official statistics released yesterday.

The state media reported that white farmers had been paying fines to secure the release of farm workers convicted of theft during a recent looting spree on their farms.

"The payment of fines and attempts to withdraw charges confirmed widespread suspicions that farmers were behind the looting of their properties," the Herald newspaper said.

The government claims farmers created the unrest in the countryside to justify international intervention in the state's affairs.

The United States and Germany have strongly condemned the government for violence that has gripped the country's farming regions, while Denmark has withdrawn aid to Harare for failing to maintain law and order.

Massive looting broke out last week following violent clashes between white farmers and black land occupiers in the Chinhoyi farming area, 60 miles north-west of Harare.

Some 350 people fled the district as mobs ransacked more than 50 farms. About 160 people, mostly farm workers, have so far been arrested and charged with theft.

Twenty-one white farmers will spend the weekend in jail. Political analysts say the government, by targeting whites, is trying to shift the blame for its own shortcomings.

"[The ruling] ZANU-PF has unleashed the lawlessness that is responsible for the looting," said Mr Masipula Sithole, head of the Mass Public Opinion Institute in Harare. "Now that international opinion is against them, they want to shift the blame."

A University of Zimbabwe political scientist, Mr John Makumbe, said President Robert Mugabe had made whites in the country the scapegoats for the economic and political crises gripping the state.

This, he said, is "what happens to an African leader when threatened not by whites but by [his] own people. will look for a scapegoat".

Meanwhile, the government's Central Statistical Office reported in its monthly bulletin: "The year-on-year inflation rate for the month of July 2001 as measured by the all-items consumer price index increased to 70.1 per cent, gaining 5.7 percentage points on the June rate of 64.4 per cent."

The new inflation figures have surpassed central bank predictions that inflation could rise to 70 per cent by year end.

Independent economists forecast the inflation figures for the beleaguered country could easily rise to 100 per cent by year end.