Zimbabwe war veterans threaten embassies

Mugabe's party accuses Britain, the U.S. and Europe of backing the opposition

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- Ruling party militants will target foreign embassies and aid agencies to protest against alleged support for opponents of President Robert Mugabe, militant leaders say.

Attacks against businesses were stepped up on Thursday as Mugabe acted to stop Zimbabwe's courts from overturning last year's occupation of white-owned farms.

The militants' leader, Chenjerai Hunzvi, threatened action against foreign embassies and aid agencies, saying they were funding and colluding with the opposition Movement for Change.

"We will be visiting them soon to express our displeasure and to warn them to stop interfering with our internal matters," Hunzvi said. "Our next target will be to deal with them once and for all."

Mugabe's party has accused Britain, the former colonial power, the United States and the European Union of backing the opposition.

Western diplomats in Harare said on Thursday they were taking the threat seriously and that ambassadors would draft a joint submission to the government.

Police have taken no action against ruling party militants who have stormed more than 20 businesses, factories and other facilities in the past two weeks demanding payouts for laid-off workers, compensation or pay increases.

The opposition said the raids were aimed to win back the vote of urban workers who largely supported the opposition in parliamentary elections last June.

The Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, representing thousands of factories and commercial businesses, said on Wednesday it had been inundated with reports from its members of "external interference in labour matters" usually handled by the Ministry of Labour.

It called for swift action to end the intimidation.

Britain has led international criticism of Mugabe over the violent take-over of white-owned farms and what it says has been his systematic intimidation of the press and judiciary.

Hunzi's supporters, many of them too young to have fought the white regime in the former Rhodesia, occupied more than 1,000 of the country's 4,500 white-owned commercial farms in the run-up to parliamentary elections last year.

The Rural Land Occupiers Bill, published on Thursday, seeks to "restrict or suspend" legal proceedings against those who had occupied land by the start of last month.

The law, which is virtually assured of passage through the parliament dominated by Mugabe's ZANU-PF, would overturn court orders against the occupations and prevent further court action, effectively legalising the tenure of occupiers.

The draft law appeared likely to reverse the Zimbabwe Supreme Court's December instruction to Mugabe to produce a "workable" land reform programme in six months.

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