Nov 17, 2009

ROME (Reuters) - President Robert Mugabe called on Tuesday for the West to lift sanctions against Zimbabwe, saying "neo-colonialist enemies" were trying to make his land reform fail and his country dependent on food imports.

Mugabe, speaking at a U.N. food summit in Rome, denounced what he called the "punitive policies of certain countries" whose interests he said were opposed to the success of his farm and food policies.

But compared with his firebrand attacks on the United States and Britain, he struck a relatively moderate tone in his speech.

"We face very hostile interventions by these states which have imposed unilateral sanctions on us," Mugabe said.

"This has had a negative impact on our farmers who, according to our neo-colonialist enemies, must fail as to damn the land reforms we have undertaken," he added, without naming any country.

He added that Zimbabwe had also "seen a wish to make us dependent on food imports as opposed to enhancing our capacity for production".

Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, has long been a pariah in the West. Critics blame him for plunging his country, once the bread basket of southern Africa, into poverty through mismanagement and corruption.