ZIMBABWE: UPDATE 2-MUGABE SAYS NO MINE SEIZURES, WARNS POLICE.
By Cris Chinaka - 17 Jun 2000 07:10GMT
KADOMA, Zimbabwe, June 16 (Reuters) - President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe said on Friday his government would not seize mines owned by foreign companies but wanted blacks to have a share of their ownership.
"I did not say we are going to take over the gold mines. I never said so," Mugabe told about 20,000 supporters at a political rally in the mining town of Kadoma, 150 km (90 miles) south of the capital Harare.
"There won't be any seizure, never, ever of gold mines but what we would want to pursue (is) the policy of empowerment and get our multinational companies to open up to some of the black entrepreneurs," he said.
Mugabe also warned police they would be fired if they intervened in hundreds of white-owned farms that have been occupied by liberation war veterans since February.
In an interview with a British newspaper on Thursday, Mugabe said his government was looking at seizing foreign-owned mining assets after it completes the takeover of hundreds of white-owned farms after parliamentary elections next week.
"After land we must look at the mining sector," Mugabe said in the interview on Thursday. "There must be Africans as owners, not just as workers."
Mugabe said on Friday there had been discussions with foreign-owned mines about the possibility of allowing Zimbabweans to own shares in the companies.
WORKING WITH MULTINATIONALS
"What we have been working on with some multinational companies is to get them to open up to our individual entrepreneurs," he said.
"Anglo American we have been talking to and we have been talking to others to open up and give a shareholding to the blacks," Mugabe added.
Most of Zimbabwe's 1,000 mines are small and locally owned. But 60 percent of mining earnings are generated by large foreign-controlled operations that produce gold, copper, nickel, asbestos and coal.
Among them are some of the world's biggest mining companies, including London-listed Anglo American Plc and Rio Tinto Plc .
Mugabe's comments on Thursday dealt a further blow to investor confidence in a country already suffering political and economic turmoil.
Sentiment toward Zimbabwe is already at an all-time low due to political violence linked to the invasion of hundreds of white-owned farms by pro-Mugabe militants since February. At least 29 people have died, most of them opposition supporters.
The government has targeted 804 commercial farms to be seized and redistributed to landless blacks after the election.
Mugabe himself is not up for re-election until 2002, but ZANU-PF faces a stiff challenge from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) at parliamentary elections on June 24-25.
THOUSANDS FLEE HOMES
Thousands of villagers have fled their homes to escape a terror campaign that has made free and fair elections impossible, human rights groups said on Friday.
But the independent Public Opinion Institute in Zimbabwe said on Friday a survey of 6,000 people across the country indicated the MDC was poised to win 70 of the 120 contested parliamentary seats.
Mugabe's ZANU-PF party currently holds 147 of the 150 seats in parliament. Thirty of the 150 seats are nominated by the president.
Mugabe has backed the land invasions but denied responsibility for the violence and accused the opposition of fomenting unrest at the bidding of the British government.
"The British government is fighting these elections and we want to defeat them thoroughly, thoroughly. The MDC is just a front," Mugabe told cheering supporters.
His government is under growing international pressure to end the land invasions, but Mugabe has refused to order the veterans off the farms and warned police not to intervene.
"I said no police would go to the farms to evict war veterans. If any policeman goes here he will be fired."
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