President Robert Mugabe’s government has labelled opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai as state enemy number one, the official Zimbabwe media reported on Thursday.
Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa also issued a veiled threat of unspecified action to be taken against Tsvangirai, the head of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), when he returns from a lengthy international tour.
Chinamasa was quoted in the state-controlled daily Herald newspaper as telling Parliament on Wednesday that Tsvangirai was the government’s worst enemy for lobbying for sanctions on his fellow countrymen.
”I can’t think of any other description other than to say state enemy number one,” he said.
”If Mr Tsvangirai called for sanctions, I don’t expect he would want to return to this country,” he added, without elaborating.
The former national trade union leader has been on an international tour for nearly three weeks. Government officials returned his passport after his acquittal on treason charges last month.
A campaign of smart sanctions against Mugabe and his political inner circle began in 2001 in retaliation against the Zimbabwe government’s violent repression of its opponents and the lawless seizure of white-owned farm land.
The United States, the European Union, Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland banned Mugabe and senior ruling party and government officials from travelling to their countries, and from holding bank accounts there. There are also bans on arms supplies to Zimbabwe.
Tsvangirai was banned from travelling for two years when he was forced to surrender his passport for the length of the treason trial in which he was accused of plotting to assassinate 80-year-old Mugabe. The judge said the state had provided no evidence to support the charges.
He left Harare on October 23 for talks with Southern African leaders, flew on to West Africa where he met the leaders of Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana and Burkina Faso, and then to Europe. He was reported on Wednesday to be in Sweden from where he will go on to Denmark, Norway and The Netherlands. He was also due to meet European Union leaders and the EU secretariat.
In London, he would address members of the estimated 1,2-million Zimbabwean diaspora who had fled economic collapse and political repression to live in Britain.
MDC deputy Secretary General Gift Chimanikire said the party wanted to explain their view of the democratisation of Zimbabwe and the need for the restoration of the rule of law.
Tsvangirai has also been urging international leaders to force Mugabe to stick to internationally accepted guidelines for parliamentary elections set for March next year.
Tsvangirai was widely regarded as the winner of presidential elections in 2002, but Mugabe won with 1,5-million votes against Tsvangirai’s 1,1-million. Independent observers, including the Commonwealth, dismissed Mugabe’s win as the result of violent intimidation. – Sapa-DPA