(2 Sep 2002)

1. Various Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, walking onto stage
2. SOUNDBITE: (English) Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe:
"Your excellencies we must examine why 10 years after Rio, the poor remain very much with us - poorer and far more exposed and vulnerable as ever before. Our children suffer from malnutrition and diseases, compounded by the deadly HIV-AIDS endemic. The betrayal of the collective agenda we set ourselves at Rio is a compelling manifestation of bad global governance, a lack of real political will by the north and a total absence of rule of law in international affairs."
3. Cutaway
4. SOUNDBITE: (English) Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe:
"Indeed, ours is an Agrarian economy, an imperative that renders the issue of access to land paramount. In our situation, Mr. President, this fundamental question has pitted the black majority who are the right holders and therefore, primary stakeholders of our land, against an internationally well connected racial minority, largely of British descent, and brought in and sustained by British colonialism, now being supported and manipulated by the Blair government. We have said, even as we acquire our land, that we shall not deprive white farmers of land completely. Everyone of them is entitled to at least one farm - more than one farm indeed. Fifteen, twenty, thirty-five farms, one person. These are not figures I am getting out of my mind. They are real figures. So no farmer is being left without land."
5. Cutaway audience
6. SOUNDBITE: (English) Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe:
"Let no one who is negative want to spoil what we are doing for ourselves, in order to unite Africa. We belong to this continent. We don't mind having and bearing sanctions banning us from Europe. We are not Europeans and we have not asked for any inch of Europe, or any spare inch of that territory. So Blair, keep your England and let me keep my Zimbabwe."
7. Cutaway audience
8. SOUNDBITE: (English) Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe:
"People must always come first in sustainable development and later Africans come first in the development of Africa. Not as puppets, not as beggars but as a sovereign people. Thank-you."

STORYLINE:

Speaking at the Earth Summit in South Africa on Monday, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe attacked British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, telling him to stop interfering in Zimbabwean affairs.

Mugabe told gathered world leaders at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg, "Blair, keep your England and let me keep my Zimbabwe."

During his speech, Mugabe also defended his government's land reforms. He said white farmers in Zimbabwe were "an internationally well connected racial minority, largely of British descent, and brought in and sustained by British colonialism, now being supported and manipulated by the Blair government."

The British Prime Minister was not in the hall during Mugabe's speech.

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