Zimbabwe: Mugabe rules out talks with opposition

Harare (dpa)- Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe ruled out Monday talks with the leader of the main opposition party MDC.

In a speech to mark Heroes' Day, a national holiday in remembrance of black nationalists killed during the 1970s guerrilla war against white minority rule, Mugabe said he had expected those calling for talks between his party and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to "stop misdirecting their efforts''.

"I am aware that there are shrill calls from many quarters, including those which we expect to know better, for the so-called talks with the MDC,'' said Mugabe in a speech broadcast live on national radio and television.

The remarks come a day after South African press reports said President Thabo Mbeki's government has attached strict conditions to a loan sought by Zimbabwe.

They reportedly include talks between Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and the MDC, although this has not been confirmed by the South African government.

Zimbabwe is believed to be seeking up to a billion U.S. dollars to pay its debts to the International Monetary Fund and pay for food, fuel and power.

A spokesman for United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the U.N. chief is only likely to accept an invitation from Mugabe to visit Zimbabwe once the ruling party starts talking to the opposition.

But Mugabe refused Monday to meet with MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

"No sir, I don't want to meet you,'' he told thousands gathered in Harare's Heroes' Acre, a shrine to those killed during the country's independence war.

Banners held aloft read: "We did not win elections to form a coalition government'' and "We thank you People's Republic of China'', a reference to increasingly close Zimbabwean-Chinese relations.

Mugabe said he would only be willing to speak to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and blames many of the country's problems on the former colonial power.

He has accused the MDC of being a front for British interests in Zimbabwe, which the opposition denies.

"What does it pay us to talk to the puppets?'', Mugabe asked. "We would rather talk to the principal who manipulates the puppets.''

Zimbabwe has been politically divided since 2000, when the MDC posed the first real challenge to Mugabe's two decades of uninterrupted rule. The MDC says three elections have been stolen from it over the past five years through fraud, violence and intimidation.

The opposition party, backed by most urban dwellers, accuses Mugabe's government of destroying the country's agricultural base and plunging Zimbabwe into an economic crisis marked by chronic shortages of foreign currency needed to fund vital imports such as medicine, food and fuel. dpa rt pb