Zimbabwe will always regard former colonial ruler Britain as an enemy, President Robert Mugabe said on Friday in a speech that also took a swipe at a leading clergyman who has been an outspoken critic of his government.
Mugabe has clashed with the government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair mainly over his seizure of white-owned farms for redistribution to blacks he says were dispossessed of their land during white colonial rule.
Speaking at the state funeral of war veteran Mark Dube on Friday, Mugabe singled out outspoken Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo as being among opponents he said were aligned with Britain in working to topple his administration.
Dube was a former provincial governor who served as a senior military trainer for Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party during Zimbabwe's long liberation war.
"He (Dube) would never have gone to Britain to invite Blair to please come and invade his motherland, in the same satanic way Archbishop Pius Ncube and his opposition colleagues are doing repeatedly today," Mugabe said.
"He would never speak the language of tribalism, that destructive dialect we again hear from the pulpit."
Ncube has called for tough regional and international action against Mugabe, who he says has subjected Zimbabweans to political repression and economic hardship since coming to power at independence in 1980.