OWN CORRESPONDENT, London | Tuesday
ZIMBABWES main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, believes a presidential election will be called in his country in August as the government deteriorates into panic.
Meanwhile, diplomatic relations between Britain and Zimbabwe deteriorated as the Foreign Office confirmed it had called in the Zimbabwean high commissioner over the expulsion and intimidation of a British BBC journalist.
Foreign Office minister Brian Wilson used the meeting to call on Zimbabwe to respect the freedom of the press and to allow foreign journalists to operate freely, a Foreign Office representative said.
Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), told the BBC: “The [Zimbabwe] government is acting in a panic, it is clear it is acting like it is under siege and therefore hitting out at everyone it perceives to be an enemy.”
He said on the British Newsnight programme that he suspected “all this scenario is being built towards an early presidential election this year” which he thought would be held in August.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Monday hit out at what he called foreign interference in his nation’s affairs.
His government on Saturday ordered two journalists, BBC correspondent Joseph Winter and Uruguayan Mercedes Sayagues, who writes for the Mail and Guardian newspaper, to leave the country.
The Foreign Office representative said Wilson had “reminded the high commissioner that scenes like this do Zimbabwe no favours in the eyes of the world.
“A free press is essential in any democracy and the government of Zimbabwe cannot prevent the world from seeing what is happening there.”
Wilson also sought assurances that there would be no further removals of journalists from Zimbabwe. Winter and his family have since left the country and are staying with friends in Johannesburg.
Speaking to the BBC, Winter said his home in Harare was raided by security police on Sunday.
“Me and my family were very, very worried,” he said.
Among the events which have escalated political tension in Zimbabwe recently was the resignation of the chief justice after the justice minister reportedly told him the government could no longer guarantee his safety. This came just after the printing press for the nation’s only independent daily newspaper, The Daily News, was bombed with explosives that weapons experts said were likely military landmines. – AFP
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