BULAWAYO (Zimbabwe) March 2: Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said on Saturday his internationally lauded policy of reconciliation with whites after the country’s independence was a mistake.

“We came with reconciliation. We said to (Rhodesia’s prime minister Ian) Smith, as long as you stay under our rule and respect us, stay in Zimbabwe,” Mugabe told a rally in the southern city of Bulawayo with presidential elections one week away.

“Did we make a mistake through reconciliation? Yes, deep down I say it was a mistake,” he said.

Mugabe said white Zimbabweans had turned against him, by voting against a constitution he had campaigned heavily for in a February 2000 referendum.

Only days after the referendum, pro-Mugabe militants began forcibly invading white-owned farms, saying they were protesting the slow pace of redistributing white lands to the majority black population.

But Mugabe told the 10,000 people at a soccer stadium here that he had instructed police not to evict the farm invaders, despite the sometimes deadly nature of their campaign.

“When the war veterans once again took the lead and went onto the farms to occupy them, I said no policeman shall remove them, because of the hard-hearted nature of the Rhodesians,” he said.

The speech, coloured in the militant language of the liberation war, came one week before the start of voting in the March 9-10 poll.

Campaigning has been marred by violence, as Mugabe struggles to extend his 22-year rule against a tough challenge from former labour leader Morgan Tsvangirai.—AFP