Zimbabwe

Mugabe eats cake

Article published on the 2009-03-01 Latest update 2009-03-01 12:18 TU

Mugabe eats cake, but wipes his hands first to prevent contracting cholera like 83,000 others in Zimbabwe
(Credit: Reuters)

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe celebrated his 85th birthday in lavish style on Saturday by eating a piece of his 85-kilo birthday cake, and announced that white-owned farms would continue to be seized, despite the formation of a new unity government. Zimbabwe continues to suffer an economic crisis, food shortage and cholera epidemic as over 83,000 people have been affected by the deadly disease and 3,800 have died.

Mugabe supporters from his Zanu-PF party came to the celebrations in party regalia and shook Mugabe's hand, according to correspondent Ryan Truscott.

"This year, though there is the ever-present threat of cholera...Mugabe and his wife were seen carefully wiping their hands before they ate," he said.

Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe's new prime minister and the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party did not attend. He had said earlier in the week that he would be present at the birthday festivities.

"An aide said Tsvangirai considered the party a Zanu-PF event and not a state occasion. It's a sign of just how tenuous this coalition government is," reported Truscott.

At the party, Mugabe called for white farmers not to resist land seizures. Letters have gone out to white farmers to vacate thair land as part of land acquisition laws.

The land reforms are seen as the basis for the current food crisis in the country that was formerly a major grain exporter.

The predominantly white Commerical Farmers Union (CFU) said that there has been a recent upsurge in farm invasions by a militant faction of Mugabe's Zanu-PF party.

Tsvangirai has called for an immediate end to the land seizures.

At his party on Saturday, Mugabe dismissed any arbitration methods by outside groups. "We are not going to listen to the excuse that some farms went to the SADC (Southern African Development Community) tribunal.

In related news, two of some 30 rights and opposition activists were released on bail on Sunday. MDC activist Fidelis Chiramba and Broderick Takawira of the Zimbabwe Peace Project are accused of plotting to overthrow Mugabe.