'We will turn our people into guerillas again', Mugabe warns

'We will turn our people into guerillas again', Mugabe warns

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By Agencies

ZIMBABWE'S President Robert Mugabe warned Britain, the United States, Australia and Nigeria against interfering in Zimbabwe as he accepted the credentials of their new ambassadors, state radio reported on Friday.

Receiving the representatives at his official residence in Harare on Thursday, the 80-year-old Mugabe made reference to the 1972-80 war to end white racist rule in former Rhodesia, telling the officials: "We will turn our people into guerillas again should the need arise. So leave us alone."

Mugabe reportedly told the incoming ambassadors "categorically that Zimbabwe was an independent nation which brooked no interference in its affairs and would fiercely defend its independence and sovereignty".

The new Nigerian representative, Anthony Ufumwen Osula, has waited three months for accreditation due to a cooling of relations between Abuja and Harare over Nigerian President Olusagun Obasanjo's failure in the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) in support of Mugabe's seizure of 5 000 white farms and confrontation with developed world critics of his human rights record.

A broadcast said Mugabe told new British ambassador Roderick Pullen that "regime change" was the prerogative of the Zimbabwean people - a reference to a speech British Prime Minister Tony Blair made in the House of Commons in June concerning contacts with the Zimbabwe opposition Movement for Democratic Change on hoped-for reform.

A British embassy spokesperson confirmed the meeting and said Pullen pledged to work to improve relations.

Mugabe was also reported to have criticised the United States' refusal to accept his March 2002 claim to have won a further six-year term of office as "legitimate", in view of alleged rigging, intimidation and other abuses during the poll.

Zimbabwe also received the new representatives of Egypt, Mexico and Benin.

Britain, the United States and the European Union have been foremost in backing international efforts to feed up to six million Zimbabweans during three years of dire food shortages due to the collapse of commercial agriculture here.

Roman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo, a leading critic of Mugabe, says over half a million Zimbabweans would have starved to death but for the aid, and accused Mugabe of using food and land redistribution as political weapons against opponents of his 24 year rule. - dpa
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