You hit me, I hit you, says Mugabe

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe threatened "tit-for-tat" retaliation against companies from Britain and the US yesterday if the Western nations persisted in pressuring his government with sanctions and what he called "harassment".

Mugabe's latest verbal broadside against his main Western critics followed their questioning of his re-election in a July 31 vote that his rival Morgan Tsvangirai denounced as a "coup by ballot" which he said involved widespread vote-rigging.

Mugabe, 89, has rejected the fraud allegations and was sworn in on Thursday last week for a new five-year term. "They should not continue to harass us, the British and Americans," he told supporters at the funeral of an air force officer. ''We have not done anything to their companies here ... and we have not imposed any controls, any sanctions against them, but time will come when we will say well, tit-for-tat, you hit me, I hit you."

British companies in Zimbabwe include banking groups Standard Chartered Plc and Barclays Plc. These are already the target of an "indigenisation" policy that requires they cede a majority stake to black Zimbabweans.

The policy has also been applied to foreign mining houses including those owned by South African companies such as Impala Platinum.