Blantyre | Tuesday
THE Zimbabwean government accused Britain on Monday of meddling in its internal affairs by financing the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party.
The statement, accusing Britain of wanting to recolonise Zimbabwe, was issued in the southern Malawian commercial city of Blantyre, where the 14-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) is holding its annual summit.
”The gross interference by the British government in Zimbabwe’s internal affairs is not being done in the purported interests of multi-partyism, democracy, the rule of law or human rights but for the now clear and unacceptable neo-colonial purpose of recolonising Zimbabwe,” the statement said.
Britain sought to achieve this ”by derailing and reversing political and economic gains of Zimbabwe’s hard won sovereignty and independence,” the statement added.
”The government of Zimbabwe will not stand by and watch while the British government continues to create and sponsor the opposition in Zimbabwe for purposes that are clearly designed to destabilise the country. Something must be done,” it said.
In London, a British Foreign Office spokesman said he had not yet seen the Zimbabwean statement and therefore could not comment on it.
There was no immediate comment from SADC’s secretariat.
The Zimbabwean government said funding for the MDC was being channelled through an agency called the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, and appended documents suggesting the MDC may have received 118 000 pounds in the last 12 months.
It said financial support from the Westminster Foundation for Democracy had been growing since the run-up to parliamentary elections in June last year.
The MDC won 57 out of 120 contested seats in that election and its leader Morgan Tsvangirai is expected to offer President Robert Mugabe a stiff challenge in presidential elections next year. – Reuters
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