Farrakhan backs Mugabe

2002-07-14 12:29

Harare - US radical black leader Louis Farrakhan, on a three-day visit to Zimbabwe, gave his backing to President Robert Mugabe's land seizure campaign, state media reported on Saturday.

Farrakhan, who has led a Chicago-based Muslim movement called Nation of Islam since the 1970s, was due to meet Mugabe on Saturday after arriving in Harare on Friday.

"Speaking soon after his arrival, Mr Farrakhan said he was in full support of President Mugabe's policies, especially the land issue as it was aimed at correcting a historical injustice," the state-owned Bulawayo Chronicle said in a report.

Farrakhan reportedly made his views known at a private meeting with Mugabe.

Farrakhan had blamed Zimbabwe's former colonial power Britain for failing to honour pledges - made prior to independence in 1980 - to sponsor land reform, and believed this had forced Mugabe to seize the farms, state radio said.

Farrakhan was also reported as saying the "demonisation of President Mugabe is uncalled for, (and was) the culmination of a prolonged campaign being orchestrated by the United States and Britain."

Farrakhan, who attended the launch of the new African Union (AU) in the Durban last week, has visited Zimbabwe before.

'Mugabe not isolated'

But the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corp (ZBC) said on Saturday this trip showed that Mugabe's government was not isolated.

"Western powers, including the United States and former colonial master Britain, are desperately trying to portray the Zimbabwe government as isolated," the ZBC said.

The US and the European Union have imposed travel restrictions on Mugabe and other senior ruling party officials since his controversial re-election in March.

Mugabe attended the AU summit last week, but Zimbabwe was not on the official agenda and Mugabe did not give a speech during the launch of the new pan-African group, which replaced the Organisation for African Unity (OAU).

Farrakhan, who once called Judaism a "gutter religion" and said Adolf Hitler was a "wickedly great man", was banned from Britain in 1986 for expressing racist and anti-Semitic views. The ban was upheld in a British high court in April.

Not his first visit

Nearly 3 000 white farmers have been ordered to vacate their farms by August 10 to make way for landless blacks. Eleven white farmers have been killed and thousands of farm workers assaulted and displaced since invasions of white-owned farms by pro-government militants began more than two years ago.

Mugabe, who is accused by the opposition and many Western powers of cheating in presidential polls in March, says the land programme is an effort to correct imbalances in land ownership created by British colonialism.

White farmers say they support land redistribution, but are opposed to the methods employed by Mugabe, who has ruled the former Rhodesia since independence in 1980.

- Reuters