Zambian President: Opposition Brought On Zimbabwe Land Seizures

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Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa said Friday that while the seizures of
land from white commercial farmers in Zimbabwe were "a bit harsh,"
opposition forces brought the push by President Robert Mugabe upon
themselves.

In a speech at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public
Service, Mwanawasa held to his stance that Western powers must be
willing to talk to Mugabe. Britain has called on the Southern African
Development Community to ask Mugabe not to attend a December summit of
European and African leaders.

Mwanawasa, as head of the development community, has said talking to
Mugabe would be the only way to address concerns.

"Those of you abroad ... consider the answer is there must be real
change. There must be a new initiative to bring about change," Mwanawasa
told students. "But I have a message for you, that dialogue is the most
important tool. You talk to him, give him your message and let him talk,
let him speak, and you'll find you'll be getting better results."

"The issue in Zimbabwe is over land," Mwanawasa said. "They took things
in a manner in which you and I might say is wrong ... it was a bit
harsh. But I think those in the opposition invited it."

Mugabe responded to the domestic pressures with a crackdown on
pro-western dissent. Britain claims that 100,000 Zimbabweans a month are
fleeing their homeland, a country of 12.5 million, to settle in
neighboring South Africa.

Earlier this week, Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party began a legislative
process in Parliament aimed approving a law that calls for whites to
hand over 51 percent of their business interests to blacks. The bill
prompted an acrimonious debate with opposition lawmakers calling the
measure racist, unconstitutional and against accepted principles of
equality.

An estimated 30,000 whites - just a third of them seen as
breadwinners -still live in Zimbabwe, down from about 275,000 at
independence.

Mwanawasa, who travelled to Arkansas in company with Zambian
government officials, did not take questions from reporters after his
remarks at the Clinton School. He won the Zambian presidency in 2001
with only 29 percent of the vote, but later instituted anti-corruption
policies and market reforms. The World Bank and other lending institutes
agreed in 2005 to cancel nearly all of Zambia's $7.2 billion foreign
debt.

Mwanawasa travelled to Arkansas to give a speech at Harding
University in Searcy and received an honorary doctorate from the private
Christian college.