JOHANNESBURG: The US government has said it wants to see President Robert Mugabe removed from power and that it is working with the Zimbabwean opposition to bring about a change of administration.

As scores of white farmers went into hiding to escape a round-up by Zimbabwean police, a senior Bush administration official called Mugabe’s rule “illegitimate and irrational” and said that his re-election as president in March was won through fraud.

Walter Kansteiner, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, went on to blame Mugabe’s policies for contributing to the threat of famine in Zimbabwe.

“We do not see President Mugabe as the democratically legitimate leader of the country,” he said. “The political status quo is unacceptable because the elections were fraudulent. So we’re working with others, other countries in the region as well as throughout the world, on how we can in fact, together, encourage the body politic of Zimbabwe to in fact go forward and correct that situation.”

Kansteiner said the US was working with trade unions, pro-democracy groups and human rights organizations to bring about change. He did not say how he believed Mugabe could be brought down, but dismissed the possibility of a trade embargo, calling it “a blunt instrument” that would hurt ordinary Zimbabweans.

Mugabe is likely to seize on Kansteiner’s statement to reinforce his contention that his opponents are stooges for western neo-colonialism.

Shortly after the US official’s remarks, a senior Zimbabwean foreign affairs official said: “The legitimacy of our political system or our president is not dependent on America, Britain or any other country, but on Zimbabweans.

“The bullying tactics that America and Britain are using against us are meant to frustrate our quest for social and economic justice, to stop our programme to redistribute some of the very large tracts of land held by whites here to the indigenous black people.”

The US attack on Mugabe came after police began arresting white farmers for defying an August 9 deadline to vacate their land and homes. Initially, more than half of the 2,900 farmers had refused to obey, but after police began making arrests, many packed up and went.

So far, 215 commercial farmers have been arrested on a charge that carries a two-year prison sentence. Many have been released on bail, sometimes on condition that they leave their farms within days.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.