The White House on Thursday called Zimbabwe’s detention of United States and British diplomats for several hours ”outrageous” and demanded President Robert Mugabe’s government explain its actions.
”The Mugabe regime needs to not only explain its actions, but it [is] past time they stop the violence, let human rights and election monitors in and have a free and fair electoral process,” White House spokesperson Gordon Johndroe said in a statement.
”The people of Zimbabwe deserve much better than what they are getting now,” he added.
At the United Nations, US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said he expected the Security Council would hold consultations about Zimbabwe later on Thursday, and he hoped the council would express outrage about the incident.
State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack said the US would also seek out the Zimbabwean delegation attending a food-crisis summit in Rome to protest the issue. Mugabe is at the Rome meeting.
The US embassy in Harare said Zimbabwean police detained the US and British diplomats for several hours after they visited victims of political violence ahead of this month’s presidential run-off election.
McCormack told reporters the United States had protested vigorously to the Zimbabwean government over the incident and would not be intimidated by such actions.
”It is absolutely outrageous behavior and it is a taste of the kind of oppression and violence that this government is willing to use against its own people,” said McCormack.
He said the United States was not pushing for a resolution in the UN Security Council against Zimbabwe, which close neighbour South Africa would likely opposed.
However, McCormack said, Washington wanted ”to register our deep concern, unhappiness and distress about this particular incident”, and highlight that the world was watching.
He said any ”pretence” that the Zimbabwean authorities were surprised by the presence of the diplomats was a ”diversion” and Zimbabwe’s Foreign Ministry had been told in advance of their intention to travel there.
Ban gains permission to send UN envoy
Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has gained Mugabe’s permission to send a high-ranking envoy to help the nation.
Ban met with Mugabe on the sidelines of the food summit earlier this week and ”highlighted the need to stop the violence and to deploy neutral international observers,” said UN deputy spokesperson Marie Okabe.
While talking with Mugabe, Ban suggested sending Haile Menkerios, a Harvard-educated diplomat and former Eritrean ambassador, to Zimbabwe ”to discuss ways of how the United Nations can help in the election process,” Okabe said.
Mugabe agreed to Ban’s request, said Okabe.
Ban now plans to send Menkerios, the UN assistant secretary general for political affairs, to Zimbabwe within days, as soon as Menkerios obtains a visa.
The opposition and rights groups have accused Mugabe of orchestrating violence and intimidation in the run-up to the vote.
The 61-year-old Menkerios was appointed by Ban to the number two political affairs job in May 2007. He previously was deputy UN special representative in the Democratic Republic of Congo and directed one of the Africa divisions in the Department of Political Affairs.
In the 1990s, he represented the Eritrean government in varying roles as ambassador to the UN, to Ethiopia, to the Organisation of African Unity and as special envoy to Somalia and the Great Lakes region.
Menkerios would face a challenging situation in Zimbabwe, where opposition presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai placed first in the March elections and now faces a run-off with Mugabe.
Tsvangirai resumed campaigning on Thursday after spending nine hours in police detention on Wednesday, when he was stopped at a roadblock.
Tsvangirai only returned to Zimbabwe in late May to campaign. He had gone into self-imposed exile soon after the March 29 first election round, because his party said he was the target of a military assassination plot. He has survived at least three assassination attempts since 1997. – Reuters, Sapa-AP