Mugabe eyes mines
2005-09-17 11:42
Special Report
Zimbabwe’s PM Morgan Tsvangirai has called for openness in the country’s nascent diamond trade, getting underway after the lifting of a global ban over rights abuses.
A dusty road leads to the village of Wedza, where veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation war eke out a meagre living on their farm cooperative, which after a promising start now brings only despair.
United Nations - Zimbabwe's embattled and isolated leader said on Friday that his government will take a stake in privately operated mining enterprises in the mineral-rich southern African nation, but he does not intend to nationalise the industry as he has commercial farmland.
In a wide-ranging, exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Robert Mugabe claimed his people - including hundreds of thousands made homeless by a recent controversial slum clearance and others facing famine because of disastrous land reform - are "very, very happy."
Mugabe, 81, who has ruled since a guerrilla war brought independence 25 years ago, said he plans to retire when his term expires in 2008 and live between the countryside and the city, farming and writing.
He spoke in a 75-minute interview at the United Nations World Summit, which he said he was pleased to have attended even though it produced "very little by way of expectations" toward promised goals to fight poverty and eliminate trade tariffs.
Blames US
For that he blamed the United States, saying it should not be allowed to derail the agenda of dozens of other nations "just because they are the strongest and wealthiest. The United Nations isn't owned by them."
He said Africa's 52 votes at the UN - more than a quarter of all votes - and the Non-Aligned Movement's more than 100 member votes should be mobilised to ensure that the "very important, sacrosanct goals" are not dismissed.
Mugabe also railed against the US-led war in Iraq: "Iraq was attacked and attacked in violation of international law. ... They went on this rampage, on this campaign, which has destabilised Iraq, on the basis of lies," he said.
With globalisation and the fall of the Soviet Union, "the world is fast becoming a world in which small states are threatened by the bigger ones, by the bullies."
Mugabe himself has been the subject of international condemnation. His government is accused of stealing elections, most recently in March, and of gross human rights abuses to suppress opposition.
On a national level, Mugabe said his government would take a share in private mining enterprises because it wants Zimbabweans to benefit from their own natural resources. And he expects companies currently mining there, including the multinational Anglo American, to understand that desire.
"What we intend to do is for the state to have a stake in the production of some of our minerals - gold, platinum, diamonds," he said. "We are behind countries like Botswana and Namibia ..."
"We just want to be partners. We are not doing anything unusual, and this is the practice in many countries," he said.
Zimbabwe mines coal, chromium ore, asbestos, gold, nickel, copper, iron ore, vanadium, lithium, tin and platinum group metals as well as diamonds, emeralds and semiprecious stones.
Zimbabwe has also signed several agreements for state-owned Chinese companies for mining under joint ventures with the government, he said.
But he stressed there are no plans to nationalise the industry, as he had threatened to do when first was elected, and dreamed of created a one-party Marxist state.
Mugabe also said his government has no plans to seize white-owned businesses, as Transport and Communication Minister Christopher Mushohwe was quoted as threatening in a ruling party-allied newspaper this week.
The Zimbabwe dollar is in free fall and collapsed this week to $52 000 to the US dollar. Fuel shortages have reached chronic proportions.
- AP