A RANTING Robert Mugabe yesterday declared that no African nation had the courage to depose him as president, adding: "Zimbabwe is mine".
He told members of his Zanu-PF party at its annual convention: "I will never, never sell my country. I will never, never, never surrender."
Most neighbouring countries, including South Africa, oppose military intervention in Zimbabwe, where 1,
123 people have died of cholera and half of whose population, the United Nations warns, faces imminent starvation.
However, Mr Mugabe's critics blame his policies for the ruin of the once-productive nation.
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), beat Mr Mugabe in March presidential elections at which his party ended Zanu-PF's 28-year parliamentary domination.
But the official results said Mr Tsvangirai did not win outright, and he withdrew from a run-off because of state-sponsored violence. To break the impasse, he and Mr Mugabe agreed three months ago to form a unity government, but are deadlocked over how to share cabinet posts.
Mr Tsvangirai said yesterday that he will ask his party to halt negotiations unless political detainees are freed or charged by 1 January. He says that more than 40 members of his party have been abducted in the past two months, along with three journalists.
"The MDC can no longer sit at the same negotiating table with a party that is abducting our members and other innocent civilians and refusing to produce any of them before a court of law," he said.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe's cen- tral bank unveiled a new Z$10 billion banknote, the largest in a range introduced since August, when it slashed ten zeros from the old currency.
