Mugabe: Whites Can't Own Land

Robert Mugabe is calling for the removal of white farmers from their land in Zimbabwe. "We say no to whites owning our land and they should go," the country's president told farmers in a small town, as the Christian Science Monitor reports. Whites, he said, "can own companies and apartments … but not the soil. It is ours, and that message should ring loud and clear in Britain and the United States."

Calling for "indigenization," Mugabe and his allies drove out thousands of white farmers more than a decade ago, the Monitor notes. Whites "were living like kings and queens on our land and we chucked them out. Now we want all of it," he says. A farmer's union director tells the BBC that about 100 to 150 white farmers remain in the country. "We'd like to move forward and work with the government of the day," he notes. The country is near bankruptcy, the Monitor notes, and Mugabe's call may be an effort to distract people from the economic difficulties. (More Robert Mugabe stories.)