President Robert Mugabe has set the tone for his election campaign by lashing out against the opposition, and the nation's white minority.
The Zimbabwean leader spoke at his first campaign rally a day after his party pushed through a stringent media bill aimed at gagging independent journalists ahead of the March election.
He accuses opposition leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change party of standing for all things white.
"What they want is to bring you under white rule and persevere the land rights of the whites," Mr Mugabe told a crowd of about 10,000 people in Mutawatawa, a remote trading center 100 miles northeast of Harare.
President Mugabe, is fighting for his political survival in this election after almost 22 years in power. The media bill is part of a package of legislation aimed at stifling dissent ahead of the vote.
The new legislation makes it illegal for journalists to operate without government accreditation. In a nod to moderate voices within the ruling party who objected to the original wording of the bill, it allows foreign correspondents into the country but only to cover specific events.
Mr Mugabe said the poor rural district, a traditional stronghold of his Zimbabwe National Union Patriotic Front party, had "problems of development and bad roads brought about by Britain and Tsvangirai."
"Britain has decided to take us on through the (opposition) MDC (Movement for Democratic Change). How can we have blacks who masquerade as whites? Whatever Britain tries to do, we will not back off," Mugabe said.
PA