A leading Zimbabwean Cabinet minister vowed at the weekend to rid the country of the "filth" of white farmers. Didymus Mutasa, the Minister for State Security and Land Reform, said all remaining white farmers must be "cleared out".

About 400 white families are still farming in Zimbabwe, following the seizure by President Robert Mugabe's government of more than 4 000 farms.

Mutasa, one of Mr Mugabe's closest advisers, referred to Operation Murambatsvina ("Clean out the trash" in Shona) -- the campaign in which the government destroyed the homes of hundreds of thousands of urban poor.

"Operation Murambatsvina should also be applied to the land reform programme to clean the commercial farms that are still in the hands of white farmers. White farmers are dirty and should be cleared out. They are similar to the filth that was in the streets before Murambatsvina," said Mutasa, according to the state-controlled Sunday Mail newspaper...

...Meanwhile, Mugabe accused the United States and Britain of racism and double standards over human rights on Sunday, and said the UN housing agency should work with US storm victims, not Zimbabweans left homeless by government demolitions of slums.

Mugabe questioned why his government was criticised for demolitions that left up to an estimated 700 000 people homeless while Britain and Habitat, the Nairobi-based UN agency, remained silent about the US government's response to Hurricane Katrina...