Full text of President Robert Mugabe's speech marking 31 years of Zimbabwe's Independence - delivered at the National Sports Stadium on April 18, 2011:

IT IS with a great sense of joy and unfaltering national pride that I warmly welcome you as we celebrate the 31st anniversary of our sacred Independence.

We are a people today fully enjoying the right to self-determination and to chart our own course in life. This day, the 18th of April, is written in indelible ink as the day on which freedom came to this country. And, our hard-won freedom is celebrated and honoured by all of us in the full knowledge that it did not come easily. Lives were lost, limbs painfully bore the brunt of racist Rhodesia's anger as untold suffering was inflicted on our innocent people.

It was through our oppressed people's resilience, their immense sacrifices and the armed revolutionary struggle prosecuted by their sons and daughters that Zimbabwe was born. It is a joy and source of pride for me to say to you all, Happy 31st Birthday and Happy Birthday to all fellow Zimbabweans, wherever they may be, across the length and breath of the land of our forefathers!

We also thank the Good Lord who has helped to defend and preserve our great nation. Ladies and gentlemen, comrades and friends, while the early rains gave us hopes of a good harvest, our farmers having done their best, many parts of the country unfortunately succumbed to a prolonged dry spell that has threatened our food security.

The government is, at the moment, assessing the situation in order to establish whether there will be need to import food, that is, maize. The phenomenal increase in the production of tobacco, from 58,6 million kilogrammes in 2009 to 123 million kilogrammes last year, together with increased harvests of maize, sugar and cotton, demonstrated the potential that agriculture has, and its importance to the turnaround and development of our economy.

During the course of 2010, the Global Political Agreement, with missed targets here and there, and outright misunderstanding on others, continued to be implemented. In its various facets, it laid the firm foundations for the prevailing political and macroeconomic stability in the country.

I am happy to report that the GPA principals will continue to do their best to give this country, our country, the political and socio-economic direction it needs to take. We are also grateful for SADC's continued support in our efforts at ensuring the unfolding implementation of the Global Political Agreement.

Following the successful completion of the constitution-making outreach programme, the government now awaits the finalisation of the outstanding processes, ahead of elections, as is stipulated in the Global Political Agreement.