Australian Indigenous groups have been invited by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to attend a land reform conference.

The three-day Harare conference will open today and intends to "strengthen" the struggle against colonialism remnants, said Didymus Mutasa, the secretary for external affairs for the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF).

Former African liberation movements along with Indigenous groups from Africa, Britain and the Americas have also been invited.

ZANU-PF waged a seven-year war against British colonial rule in the 1970s.

Former guerrilla movements from Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia have also been invited to the gathering.

"Is there any good governance in the so-called civilised world?" Mr Mutasa asked.

"There is a lot of criticism of our land reform program and we want those who are supporting us to understand why we are doing it," he told AFP.

Mr Mutasa said the meeting will also shine a spotlight on the rights of non-whites in Western countries.

"Nobody ever questions why these people are not regarded as human beings, with any rights," he said.

"Naturally we want to strengthen ourselves and to say that the struggle continues," said Mr Mutasa. He added that he did not know specifically who would be attending.

Zimbabwe's controversial land reforms are expected to be a highlight of the forum, while good governance will be discussed among other issues.

After the opening ceremonies, "we will go straight into the discussion of the land reforms," said Mr Mutasa.

The delegates will be taken on a tour of former white-owned farms which have been seized under the program and distributed to blacks.

A small group of about 4,500 whites farmers used to own a third of Zimbabwe's land, including 70 per cent of prime farmland before the Government launched the program in February 2000.

Now fewer than 400 white farmers remain in the country and possess just 3 per cent of the country's land.

The meeting of former liberation movements is the brainchild of President Mugabe himself, who has slammed "the majority" of his counterparts in Africa for succumbing to Western influence and turning against African revolutionary causes.

He said that a few militant leaders reminiscent of former staunch nationalists remained, "but the majority have gone the Western way".

"They are listening to the enemy, they are being dictated to by the enemy and it's a pity that (the) old type of leadership has vanished the scene," he told the state broadcaster.

In a bid to get African countries to continue to resist Western tendencies, Mr Mugabe promised to host a forum of former liberation movements this year to sustain "the level of revolutionary zeal ... by interacting with them".

"We would want the forum of former liberation movements to be resuscitated," he said.