Mugabe's mine seizure
plans condemned
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 4.00pm.
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ZIMBABWE'S main opposition party has accused President Robert Mugabe of scaring foreign investors away in an attempt to win parliamentary elections on June 24 - 25.
Movement for Democratic Change spokesman Eddie Cross said that Mugabe's threat to hand over control of foreign-owned mines to skilled Africans was a disaster for the economy.
He said that the president was trying to buy the votes of Zimbabwe's black elite. In an interview with the UK's Independent newspaper, Mugabe said that after redistributing farmland confiscated from whites, his next goal was what he called the "Africanisation" of the rest of the economy. And he said that Zimbabwe's mines faced aggressive "indigenisation".
"There must be Africans in there, as owners, not just as workers," he said, adding, "We are gold, copper, asbestos and iron producers. But most of the benefits are enjoyed by the former colonialists," he said.
"At the end of the day, black people must be able to say, the resources are ours - our people own the mines, our people own the industry."
International mining giant Anglo American, which has significant interests in Zimbabwe, said on Thursday it had not discussed any of its operations with the Zimbabwe Government but said that free and fair elections and respect for the rule of law is of "prime concern to us and other investors".
The president has blamed the country's severe economic problems on market reforms carried out under pressure from the International Monetary Fund. |
