Mugabe attacks Blair and turns back on 'useless' Commonwealth

In his first interview for more than a year, Mugabe also insisted he had discussed the issue at length during a meeting with Prince Charles, where he expressed his admiration and respect for the Royal Family.

The 81-year-old did, however, say he would open his doors to Foreign Office diplomats in a bid to restore relations between Zimbabwe and Britain.

Mugabe has been ostracised by the international community after a million of his own people were made homeless in a campaign to punish opposition supporters for voting against his ruling party Zanu (PF).

The Zimbabwean president said in Harare: "If Tony Blair wants to open his doors and he wants us to open our doors, fine. His people can come here. My people can go to London and mend our relations."

But he dismissed speculation that members of the Commonwealth Secretariat would be able to persuade him to try to rejoin the 53-nations 'club' that takes in roughly a third of the world's population.

He described the Commonwealth as "a useless body which has treated Zimbabwe in a dishonourable manner". Mugabe told the London-based magazine New African that he wants his rejection of the Commonwealth written in the hearts of the people of Zimbabwe.

"We will establish relations with individual members of the Commonwealth; there is nothing wrong with that. And even if we get a Britain which is not run in the same way in regard to our relations as the Britain of Tony Blair - fine.

"We will mend our relations, and this is what I told Prince Charles when we met in Rome recently at the Pope's funeral."

It is the first reference Mugabe has made to his handshake with the heir to the British throne on April 8.

A Clarence House official said: "The Prince of Wales was caught by surprise and not in a position to avoid shaking Mr Mugabe's hand." But according to Mugabe, the two men had a long chat and recalled the night of April 17, 1980, when the Prince attended Zimbabwe's independence celebrations.

"We discussed relations and we said we have tremendous respect for the Queen. Every member of the Royal Family has been to Zimbabwe and we have tremendous respect for every member of that family.

"We have souvenirs of their visits here. We respect them and we continue to respect them." But that "respect" excludes Tony Blair, whom Mugabe says is surrounded by people he refers to as "Blair's gay gangsters".

A source close to the ruling Zanu (PF) party, who asked not to be named, said: "It's a typical Mugabe ploy. He is appealing to the British people over the head of Tony Blair.

"Mugabe is clever. He uses the same tactic with the South Africans and threatens Thabo Mbeki whenever he can. He says to African leaders that Mbeki - who is George Bush's point man in Africa - wants Mugabe to go slow on land reform because he [Mbeki] is a puppet of the white man."

Last week Scotland on Sunday revealed that low-level talks between Zimbabwean and British officials had already opened in Harare on the subject of repairing long-damaged relations before the start of the G8 meeting at Gleneagles.

Mbeki and his Tanzanian counterpart, Benjamin Mkapa, are expected to tell Britain and other G8 countries to seek a fast agreement with Zimbabwe in order to stave off hunger and chaos in a key southern African country.

They would like to see Mugabe retire and live comfortably with his young wife Grace and their three children at a 7m palace in the once all-white suburb of Borrowdale in Harare.

The understanding would be that Britain and the Commonwealth Secretariat would then deal with the next Zimbabwean leader Joyce Mujuru, the vice president, who is married to one of Zimbabwe's richest men, Solomon Mujuru.

He was the commander of Mugabe's military machine during the war against white-ruled Rhodesia between 1972 and 1979.

Meanwhile, diplomats in Harare were stunned to hear that Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka, executive director of the Nairobi-based UN-Habitat and a close friend of Tanzania's president Ben Mkapa, who supports Mugabe, had told the People's Daily in China that by demolishing thousands of shantytown homes, Mugabe had declared war "not on poor people but on poverty".

She was in Harare to study the scope of the recent eviction of "illegal squatters and dwellers" who, say Zimbabwean insiders, supported the opposition Movement for Democratic Change at the election in March. Television pictures showed her being handed a starving baby at Porta Farm in Zimbabwe.

"The baby is starving," she exclaimed, handing it back immediately. "Give it food." But a voice off screen said - "There is no food."

The legal affairs spokesman for the MDC, David Coltart, told Scotland on Sunday that he expected Mugabe to start demolishing the homes of anyone who opposes him. "I have no doubt that if the Mugabe regime can think of a pretext that it can sell to Africa, it will do anything to undermine the opposition," he said.

"That could easily include raiding homes of opposition figures. I suspect that they will allege that leaders are individually guilty of some serious offence and use that to justify further harassment."

He added: "Mugabe said that his intention was to bury the opposition, and he and his cronies will undoubtedly do everything possible to destroy the opposition."