Mugabe approves Zimbabwe constitution changes-radio

HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has
signed into law constitutional changes critics say further
entrench his rule, less than two weeks after his ruling party
pushed them through parliament, state radio reported on Monday.

The ZANU-PF party used its two-thirds parliamentary
majority to approve amendments that allow the government to
nationalize white-owned farms and impose travel bans on those
calling for military action against Zimbabwe. They will also
allow the reintroduction of a second legislative chamber,
expected to be packed with the veteran leader’s allies.

Zimbabwe radio said Mugabe told students in Cuba, where he
is on a state visit, that elections for the Senate — which the
government says will improve the quality of legislation passed
in the country — would be held before the end of the year.

The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
has slammed the latest amendments to the constitution, which
Mugabe has now altered 17 times since independence from Britain
in 1980, as “a serious assault on citizens’ basic rights and
freedoms.”

Changes to land laws will effectively bar white farmers
from challenging in courts the seizure of their property under
the government’s controversial land reform program, which
critics say has destroyed commercial agriculture.

Critics say the clauses allowing the government to impose
travel bans are yet another tool to suppress opposition to
Mugabe’s 25 year reign as the country grapples with an economic
crisis widely blamed on his mismanagement.

Mugabe says his local opponents have conspired with
foreigners to sabotage Zimbabwe’s economy over his land
seizures, which he argues were necessary to correct colonial
imbalances which left minority whites in control of the bulk of
the country’s prime farmland.