Harare - President Robert Mugabe on Friday called Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's choice for a ministerial post an "offspring of a settler" who was not Zimbabwean, a remark which is likely to further strain the country's fragile coalition government. Mugabe was referring to Roy Bennett, a white commercial farmer who was driven off his land by Mugabe's controversial land reform targeting whites.

Mugabe has refused to appoint Bennett as deputy agriculture minister in the coalition government with Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), saying he must first be cleared of terrorism charges he is facing.

Addressing a congress of his Zanu PF in Harare, the president attacked the MDC as a puppet of the West, saying they asked for sanctions to be imposed on Zimbabwe.

"To the MDC I say: Open your eyes. This is your country and not for whites. Not the Bennetts. They are settlers, even if they were born here they are offspring of settlers," he said.

The Zanu PF congress, which ends on Saturday, has already nominated Mugabe as its presidential candidate in the country's next election, for which no date has been set.

Mugabe and Tsvangirai formed a power sharing government in February, following a disputed presidential election run-off that the international community refused to recognize. Tsvangirai had trounced Mugabe in the first round.

In his speech on Friday, Mugabe admitted for the first time he lost an election. He attributed the loss due to the internal squabbles of his party.

He repeated his calls for the West to remove the sanctions imposed on him and some Zanu PF senior members in 2002 following a spate of human rights abuses and allegations of a rigged election.

Mugabe said the sanctions were unjustified and meant to punish him for his controversial land reform programme.

"If you have a rich country, well naturally-resourced whether mineral, agricultural, or otherwise, they envy these resources, they find ways of penetrating your system," said Mugabe.

He claimed that Britain formed the MDC to change revolutionary trends in Zimbabwe. "That is how the MDC was formed. They (Great Britain) did not hide this. They were blatant."

Bennett, 52, is on trial for allegedly plotting to overthrow Mugabe's government in 2006. Mugabe's opponents have often been charged with plotting insurgency, but none of the charges ever stuck.

By Staff reporter and agencies