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Harare - Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe handed out tractors and fuel on Saturday as he courted votes ahead of elections this month, and a leading opponent urged the veteran president to end decades of misrule and retire.Mugabe handed out the farm equipment to blacks given land seized from whites, a reform his critics say has helped plunge Zimbabwe into economic crisis, and predicted an overwhelming victory that would confound Britain and other critics. The 84-year-old Mugabe is seeking to extend his 28-year hold on power in presidential, parliamentary and local council polls set for March 29, and has blamed the West for Zimbabwe's economic crisis.At a ceremony in the capital Harare, Mugabe provided farm equipment worth millions of dollars to thousands of new black farmers, machinery for women and youths to establish small businesses and buses to try to ease public transport problems.He also gave traditional chiefs at the same ceremony thousands of litres of fuel, also in short supply."When the government embarked on the land reform programme, the dark forces of imperialism sought to strangle our agro-based economy through the spiteful closure of financial loans and grants to us," he told thousands at the equipment distribution."This hate programme by Britain and her fellow racists imposed unjustified sanctions on Zimbabwe in futile attempts to frighten us off our land. But we shall never retreat, never, never," he said in what has become a ritual attack on Zimbabwe's former colonial master.Pension time
Mugabe faces a tough challenge from rebel former finance minister, Simba Makoni, and long time opposition rival Morgan Tsvangirai, who narrowly lost the disputed 2002 election to Mugabe."It's time Mugabe went for a retirement package...Mugabe should be ashamed to be seeking re-election after almost 30 years of misrule," Tsvangirai told a cheering crowd in a packed stadium in the southern city of Bulawayo.Tsvangirai said his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) would speed up economic development in the region and compensate victims of a military crackdown on a five-year Matabeleland insurgency in the 1980s that left thousands dead.The region has long been an opposition stronghold."We're going to set up a Matabeleland Reparations Fund to respond to those who were unfortunate to lose their dear ones, to make sure they are able to restore their lives again and be part of this society," Tsvangirai said.The opposition leader, who says his government would make constitutional reforms a top priority, also promised greater autonomy for the country's provinces, but said this would not take the form of a federal administration.
As in the days of Noah....
