'Zimbabwe is mine' says Mugabe

BINDURA, Zimbabwe,

(AFP)

President Robert Mugabe declared Friday that "Zimbabwe is mine" and vowed never to surrender to calls to step down, as his political rival threatened to quit stalled unity government talks.

Addressing his ZANU-PF party's annual conference amid a ruinous political crisis and a deadly cholera epidemic, Mugabe returned to the kind of defiance he has often shown in the face of mounting criticism.

"I will never, never, never, never surrender. Zimbabwe is mine, I am a Zimbabwean. Zimbabwe for Zimbabweans.

Zimbabwe never for the British, Britain for the British," Mugabe told his party's annual conference.

The veteran leader in the former British colony said he would remain until "his people decided to change him." While the comments struck a familiar tone for the 84-year-old leader he said earlier this year that only God could remove him from office he now faces increasingly grim circumstances in his crippled country.