The United States government said on Tuesday it stands by its ambassador facing intense criticism after blaming President Robert Mugabe’s government for Zimbabwe’s economic crisis.
The State Department’s defence of Christopher Dell came in a statement as Mugabe said the US envoy ”should rather go to hell”, according to state radio.
”The president, Comrade President Robert Mugabe says the American Ambassador Christopher Dell’s meddling in the internal affairs of Zimbabwe is wrong, saying the ambassador should rather go to hell,” the radio said.
Last week Dell told a gathering at the Methodist Church-run Africa University in the eastern city of Mutare that corruption and mismanagement were the cause of Zimbabwe’s economic problems.
”Neither drought nor sanctions are at the root of Zimbabwe’s decline,” he said.
”The Zimbabwe government’s own gross mismanagement of the economy and its corrupt rule has brought on the crisis.”
A statement released in Washington and distributed in Harare on Tuesday said the US State Department backed the ambassador’s explanation for Zimbabwe’s economic collapse.
”Ambassador Dell effectively refuted regime propaganda that blames Zimbabwe’s economic problems on American and European sanctions,” it said.
”This propaganda aims to distract and confuse the Zimbabwean people about the real cause of their distress.”
Britain, the US and most European Union countries have imposed visa and financial restrictions on member’s of Zimbabwe’s ruling elite, including Mugabe and his wife.
Mugabe’s government claims the measures have resulted in donors withholding aid and international lenders refusing loans.
Zimbabwe is experiencing its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980. Annual inflation is close to 360% and rising, while unemployment and poverty levels are well above 70%.
There is also an acute shortage of foreign currency needed to pay for fuel, power and medicines. Dell’s speech sparked an uproar in government circles. State newspapers have suggested he may be expelled from Zimbabwe.
Cops arrest 200 unionists
Police on Tuesday detained the entire leadership of Zimbabwe’s trade union umbrella organisation to muzzle protests against worsening economic conditions, union officials said.
News of the arrests of all the top leaders of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trades Unions, representing 30 worker organisations with one million members, came in a statement expressing ”utter shock and dismay” by the trade union congress in neighbouring South Africa.
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trades Unions had scheduled a midday march to ”remind government and employers that workers are hungry, angry and tired”.
The South African statement said that those arrested included the president of the congress, Lovemore Matombo and his secretary-general, Wellington Chibebe.
”Reports we have now is that at least 200 people have been arrested in Harare alone and they are held at the Harare Central police station,” the statement said.
Ahead of the planned march, police mounted roadblocks on all routes into Harare, stopping any vehicle having more than one passenger. Paramilitaries with dogs, shields and batons were conspicuous on most street corners and in the city’s central Unity Square Gardens outside Parliament.
Witnesses said about 10 trades unionists were arrested and swiftly hustled away by police in downtown Harare at lunchtime as they prepared to deliver a petition to the Labour Ministry, demanding new minimum wages, improved conditions, and free
treatment for millions of HIV/Aids sufferers.
Demonstrators included people who had worked as vendors and were by a government campaign to demolish shacks and clamp down on street traders.
Union officials said police swooped overnight on leading activists in several parts of the country and detained them even though the union had notified police of the marches, as required under draconian new security laws.
Nicholas Goche, minister of labour and social welfare, had denounced the protest as ”a political gimmick” but stopped short of declaring an outright ban.
For the past five years police have moved without warning to break up any critical demonstrations, with 30 arrests on Saturday when placard-waving lobbyists for a reformed Constitution sprinted through downtown Harare, pursued by paramilitary riot squads. – AFP
