Zimbabwe’s state media ratcheted up its attacks on Western diplomats accused of supporting government opponents on Tuesday with an apparent death threat against British embassy political officer Gillian Dare.
The Herald, a government mouthpiece, called Dare ”the purse holder and financier” of an alleged violence and terror campaign by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
”It will be a pity for her family to welcome her home at Heathrow airport in a body bag just like some of her colleagues from Iraq and Afghanistan,” wrote David Samuriwo in an article prominently displayed on the newspaper’s leader page.
It said Dare, ”labelled in some sections of the media as a British spy, could one day be caught in the crossfire as she plays night nurse to arrested MDC hooligans”.
The threat was the strongest against a Western diplomat during escalating political unrest in the Southern African country.
President Robert Mugabe has threatened to expel United States ambassador Christopher Dell and other Western envoys for criticising the government and allegedly bankrolling opposition activists to mount protests and demonstrations aimed at triggering ”regime change” in Zimbabwe.
The state media has given prominence to the presence of Western diplomats at court appearances and news conferences of opposition activists, including Morgan Tsvangirai, head of the main opposition, who suffered bone fractures, back wounds and internal injuries in police beatings after a prayer meeting was crushed in western Harare on March 11.
The activists said afterward they were forced to lie face down and were kicked, whipped and beaten with iron bars and clubs.
Opposition detainees were at first held without food, medical attention or access to their lawyers. State television showed diplomats delivering parcels of takeout food for Tsvangirai and other detainees.
Dell walked out of a meeting of diplomats summoned last month by Foreign Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, who warned they were in breach of diplomatic protocol and could be deported.
‘Prime target for deportation’
Samuriwo said Dare, the British political officer, had also become ”a prime target for deportation”.
He accused her of recruiting local journalists, intellectuals and opposition figures to paint Mugabe in a bad light and sponsoring so-called democratic resistance cells perpetrating violence. ”It is a foregone conclusion Zimbabwe security forces will definitely get an upper hand sooner rather than later,” he wrote.
Ringleaders of alleged violent resistance were already under arrest and more opposition officials were likely to be caught as investigations continued, the article said.
The threats to Dare were ”shocking and absolutely unacceptable”, a British Foreign Office spokesperson said, on customary condition of anonymity in line with government rules.
Permanent Undersecretary Peter Ricketts called Zimbabwe’s ambassador to a meeting at London’s Foreign Office on Tuesday to express Britain’s concerns. ”He emphasised that we expect Zimbabwe to offer protection to our diplomats,” the spokesperson said. Dare remained at the embassy working as normal, she said.
Other recent articles in the Zimbabwe state media by Nathaniel Manheru, the pen name of George Charamba, Mugabe’s press secretary and close aide, said police action after March 11 left the opposition ”a misshapen lump of broken bones … with well over 70% of its leadership huddled, cramped and groaning”.
Having been ”beaten silly” after March 11, the opposition party was too frail and terrified to venture back into the streets, Charamba wrote.
He wrote of anger against government opponents among loyal security forces willing to retaliate.
”Woe betide the unfortunate back on which this torrential anger will descend,” Charamba warned in one of a series of articles seen as being condoned at the highest level.
Mugabe himself has acknowledged Tsvangirai and least 40 opposition activists were beaten up while in custody last month, warning perpetrators of protests they would be ”bashed” again if they continued to incite violence, a reference to government accusations that the opposition is to blame for a wave of unrest and petrol-bomb attacks, allegations the opposition has repeatedly denied.
He told regional leaders at a summit last week that Tsvangirai ”asked for it”. — Sapa-AP
Associated Press writer David Stringer in London contributed to this report