Call for reconciliation in Zimbabwe

Zimbabweans on Saturday celebrated their first Independence Day under a coalition government, with President Robert Mugabe calling for national reconciliation as he shared the stage with his former political rival.

As on previous anniversaries, the military paraded and fighter planes flew over a stadium in Harare, the capital.

But this year’s proceedings were “indeed unique,” Mugabe told the crowd of about 40,000, “giving us the opportunity to celebrate as one family.”

It was a markedly different Independence Day message from Mugabe, who has held on to power for three decades by jailing political opponents. But now, to secure desperately needed development aid, he needs to convince the world that he can work with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

The coalition partners have pledged to work to confront crippling poverty, collapsed utilities and chronic shortages of food and basic goods. But their union has gotten off to a rocky start, with Tsvangirai supporters still jailed and members of Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party continuing to seize land from white farmers.

Mugabe, 85, has been president since the country’s 1980 independence from Britain, and has used Independence Day events to flaunt his party’s hold on power.

The state broadcaster prefaced this year’s ceremony, however, with an interview with a top Tsvangirai aide and admonitions to Zimbabweans to leave their party T-shirts at home.

“I call on all Zimbabweans to dedicate themselves on this sacred day to national unity and reconciliation,” Mugabe told the crowd.

“We need to create an environment of tolerance,” he said. “It also means an end to these instances of violence that have caused untold harm to individuals and communities.”

Zimbabwe’s economic crisis has been blamed on a land redistribution campaign that Mugabe began in 2000. The number of white farmers has dropped from about 4,000 to 400, and farms have ended up in the hands of Mugabe cronies.

Mugabe, however, blames Western sanctions for his country’s woes.