Mbeki defends land redistribution in Zimbabwe

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (Reuters) -- South African President Thabo Mbeki told parliament on Wednesday that there was no need to put pressure on Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe over the seizure of white-owned farms.

Mbeki has come under fire from opposition politicians for South Africa's soft approach towards Mugabe's land reform plan. Farm seizures have been fiercely criticized by former colonial power Britain and other Western countries.

"I don't believe there is any need to put any pressure on President Mugabe," Mbeki said.

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Mbeki's comments came in his first statement since returning from the United Nations Millennium Summit in New York, where Mugabe dismissed efforts to mediate an end to the land crisis and vowed to press ahead with seizing farms.

"There is no Zimbabwean government programme to seize all white-owned farms," said Mbeki, in response to local reports that Mugabe's government intended to grab all white-owned land.

Mbeki said he had always maintained that illegal land seizures should not be tolerated in Zimbabwe, but the redistribution of land left in white hands as a legacy of colonialism had to be addressed urgently.

"We continue to engage the government of Zimbabwe on all of these matters," he said. "What we have to help to address in Zimbabwe is that land distribution took place as a result of colonialism."

"It is a very, very serious problem which has to be addressed...in a manner that does not create conflict, a manner that addresses that but in a way that builds Zimbabwe and doesn't destabilize it," he added.

Mbeki repeated that if there were any illegal land occupations in South Africa the police would deal with them accordingly.

"We've got a constitution. We've got laws. We have got procedures to deal with the land in South Africa," he said.

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