Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe celebrated his 85th birthday today at a huge party during which he pledged land seizures from white farmers would continue. Mugabe also vowed to press ahead with plans for locals to take majority stakes in foreign companies operating in Zimbabwe.
"There is no going back on the land reforms. Farms will not be returned back to former (white) farmers. That work will continue, but those farms have to be used properly.
"Again I want to say, the farmers who owned these farms, which now have been designated and offered to new owners, must respect that law. They must vacate those farms, they must vacate those farms, they must vacate those farms," he said.
Mugabe, Zimbabwe's sole ruler for nearly three decades, is holding onto power despite economic and political turmoil that have forced him into a unity government with the opposition.
Thousands of Zanu-PF supporters in party regalia turned up for Mugabe's 85th birthday rally at a sports field at Chinhoyi University about 100km west of Harare.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was not at the venue, despite earlier indications he would attend the rally.
Mugabe's spokesman said Tsvangirai had opted out of the event after realising it was organised by Mugabe's Zanu-PF party. "People should not read this as a snub. He [Tsvangirai] excused himself," the spokesman told Reuters.
Political analysts say although Mugabe gives the impression of a man in control, he faces a tough year ahead in managing a fragile government with Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and a battle raging in own Zanu-PF ranks over who should succeed him.
Once feted as a champion of democracy and a liberation hero, Mugabe has come under increasing criticism over the years for violence against opposition supporters and for reducing Zimbabwe from a regional breadbasket into a basket case.
Critics say Mugabe's reckless policies such as the seizures of white-owned farms for blacks have left half the country's 13 million people surviving on food aid.
The southern African country is also battling with hyperinflation, which hit 231 million per cent last July, massive unemployment, collapsing health and education services and a cholera outbreak that has claimed nearly 4,000 people in six months.
Mugabe says Zimbabwe's problems are a result of sabotage by Western and domestic opponents trying to oust him over his nationalist policies.
Reuters