No compensation for white landowners says Mugabe

In a separate development, President Mugabe told a convention of his ruling ZANU-PF party at the weekend that there would be no compensation to white farmers for lands requisitioned by the government. Mugabe was quoted in media reports as saying: "We have waited long enough and now is the time to take back our land." Mugabe also said his party would scrap the constitution's clause that guarantees compensation to landowners. Mugabe told delegates that Zimbabwe's 12.5 million blacks could not achieve economic goals as long as the country's 60,000 white community owned large tracts of land and dominated the nation's industry and commerce. "Without land, there is neither economic development nor empowerment," he said.