(Adds more Mugabe quotes, details, background) By Nelson Banya SHAMVA, Zimbabwe, May 29 (Reuters) - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said on Thursday his government had bought 600,000 tonnes of maize to ease food shortages before a June 27 presidential election run-off. The southern African country, which once had a prosperous agricultural sector, is suffering chronic food shortages in an economic meltdown critics blame on Mugabe's mismanagement. It has the world's highest inflation rate at more than 165,000 percent. Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980, is fighting to hold on to power after opposition Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai defeated him in a presidential election on March 29. Official results showed Tsvangirai did not win enough votes to avoid a second round, although the MDC insists he did. "Yesterday the (central bank) governor was telling me that they bought over 600,000 tonnes of maize from South Africa," Mugabe said at a campaign rally in northeastern Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwean ruler says Tsvangirai is a Western puppet and accuses British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, U.S. President George W. Bush and other Western leaders of plotting to oust his government for seizing thousands of white-owned farms for redistribution to blacks. Mugabe, 84, has expressed confidence he will win the run-off despite his performance in the first round. "It would be embarrassing for us to be defeated by Tsvangirai," he told supporters at the rally in Shamva district. RESULTS SPEEDED UP The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has published new rules it says will help speed up release of the run-off results, after those for the first round came out over a month after the poll. The MDC says more than 50 people have been killed in political violence it blames on Mugabe's ZANU-PF party since the March vote, while 25,000 have fled their homes. ZANU-PF, which lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since independence at a parallel vote in March, blames the opposition for the violence. On Friday Mugabe visited a mining compound in Shamva where supporters alleged their houses were torched and destroyed by MDC activists. "What we saw saddened us. We are not animals but humans. We want to warn the MDC they should stop immediately this barbaric campaign of theirs," Mugabe said. He said productive land acquired during the controversial farm seizures was still available for people wanting to be resettled, and that others would benefit from a similar drive to nationalise foreign-owned mines and other businesses. "We don't want outsiders to be major shareholders (in businesses). Outsiders should be on the minority side. The law is there already but because it is still new, we have not done anything," Mugabe said. Critics says the government has failed to equip resettled farmers with adequate skills and farm implements to fully utilise the land. On Thursday the state-owned Herald newspaper reported that wheat growers had by last Friday -- the recommended deadline to plant their winter crop -- only managed to put in just 13 percent of the target number of hectares, raising the spectre of looming bread shortages. (Additional reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Writing by Stella Mapenzauswa; Editing by Charles Dick)
Zimbabwe opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai prays during the funeral of Sherperd Jani, MDC treasurer for Mashonaland East province, in Murehwa, about 80km (50 miles) east of ...
