CHINHOYI, Zimbabwe — With his nation’s economy in shambles, President Robert Mugabe threw himself a lavish 85th birthday party Saturday, using the opportunity to call on Zimbabwe’s last white farmers to leave.
“Land distribution will continue. It will not stop,” Mugabe said in Chinhoyi, 60 miles northwest of Harare. “The few remaining white farmers should quickly vacate their farms, as they have no place there.”
Dozens of the several hundred white farmers left in Zimbabwe are challenging the right of its government to confiscate their land before a regional tribunal of African judges.
The birthday bash, which reportedly cost $250,000, was held as Zimbab we’s new unity government struggles to secure financial aid to rescue the country’s collapsed economy. Zimbabwe faces the world’s highest official inflation rate, a hunger crisis and a cholera epidemic that has killed nearly 4,000 people since August.
The Associated Press
