'Zimbabweans very, very happy'

'Zimbabweans very, very happy' - Mugabe

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By Staff Reporter

ZIMBABWEANS are "very, very happy" though aid agencies report 4 million of 11.6 million face famine, President Robert Mugabe claimed in an interview with the Associated Press.

"You describe it as if we have a whole cemetery," Mugabe said of a reporter's description of the southern African nation's dire straits, blaming "continuous years of drought."

The problem is reliance on corn, he said during Friday's interview, "but it doesn't mean we haven't other things to eat: We have heaps of potatoes but people are not potato eaters ... they have rice but they're not as attracted (to that)."

But the cost of potatoes is beyond the pocket of ordinary Zimbabweans.
Internationally, Mugabe has become a pariah and looked set for further isolation at the weekend, when the US government said it was preparing travel sanctions against him, his government and family members, prohibiting them from travelling to the United States.

That would be punishment for alleged gross human rights abuses, including torture of opponents, and theft of elections, most recently in March.

Recently the Zimbabwean government indicated that it will take a stake in private mining enterprises to ensure Zimbabweans benefit from their natural resources.
Mugabe said he expects companies 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 just want to be partners. We are not doing anything unusual, and this is the practice in many countries." Zimbabwe also mines coal, chromium ore, asbestos, nickel, copper, iron ore, vanadium, lithium and tin.

Mugabe, 81, said he has fulfilled all his ambitions except retirement. He plans to stop being president in 2008, and write and farm, but said he'll remain in politics until he dies.

"I can't retire from that unless the Almighty says 'enough is enough'."
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