Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, barred from visiting Europe or the United States, made the most of a trip to Malaysia to heap scorn on British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W Bush Monday.

Mugabe dismissed Blair, who has led British criticism of Zimbabwe's land reform policies under which whites are being driven off their farms, as immature and ignorant.

He scoffed at Washington's refusal to recognise his re-election, in a March vote widely seen as rigged, by casting doubt on Bush's own legitimacy after he narrowly squeaked a win against Al Gore in a controversial poll.

Mugabe, 78, pilloried by critics for his love of international travel and his wife Grace's penchant for expensive shopping trips while millions of his people need food aid, denied that the travel bans bother him.

"The British say I should not come to Britain, I should not go to Germany, to Europe as a whole. What do I want Europe for? I've got my own country which is more beautiful," Mugabe told reporters after addressing businessmen at the Malaysia Zimbabwe Business Fellowship.

But the African leader seemed happy enough to be in Malaysia, a fellow former British colony, along with his wife and a 36-member delegation, revelling in the applause for his every anti-colonialist jibe.

Sharing a common hatred

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, 76, is an old friend and both men have been in power for more than 20 years.

The two leaders also share a love of anti-Western rhetoric, but while Mahathir has steered Malaysia from the economic backwaters to the mainstream of Asian development, Zimbabwe's economy is in the worst crisis of its history.

Mugabe even maintained his good humour when asked about Britain's accusations that his land reforms were responsible for the fact that many of his people are going hungry, telling local reporters it was not true and that a drought was to blame.

Mugabe's government is in the process of seizing most white owned farms - the backbone of the country's commercial agricultural - saying they were stolen in the first place by British colonisers.

Britain supports the need for land reform but criticises the way Mugabe has gone about it.

"Unfortunately, the man in Britain (Blair) is immature," he told the businessmen. "When we got our independence (1980), he and his kin in government were in school. They still have a lot to learn."

Of Bush, he said: "I say Mr Bush, you of all, refusing the results of my election whereby people voted. Who voted for you? We want to know whether or not you won the election.

"To this day, I do not know if he is legitimately a president. It has to take a supreme court of the United States to pronounce that he has won, and the supreme court where his party holds the majority support. There you are."

Regular travelling

The travel ban on the man known at home as "the non-resident president" or "Vasco da Gama" after the famous Portuguese explorer, was imposed on Mugabe and members of his government by the European Union and the United States because of the disputed March elections.

But he has managed to keep up a regular travel schedule, taking the opportunity to attend United Nations meetings in New York or Rome where the bans do not apply, and has recently visited Libya and Cuba.

Mugabe's trip to Kuala Lumpur followed his attendance at a Malaysia-Africa conference on Malaysia's island resort of Langkawi at the weekend. He was due to leave later Monday. AFP