Zimbabwean foreign minister: UN investigator’s trip ‘a provocation of the highest order’

Zimbabwe foreign minister: UN trip a ‘provocation’

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe’s foreign minister on Friday sharply criticized as “a provocation of the highest order” an attempt by the U.N. torture investigator to visit Zimbabwe and investigate alleged attacks by thugs linked to the ruling party on its opponents.

Manfred Nowak had flown to Zimbabwe on Wednesday, saying it was at the invitation of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, but was held at the airport overnight and returned the next morning to South Africa. Zimbabwean Foreign Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi dismissed Tsvangirai’s invitation as meaningless.

“The invitation by the prime minister was a nullity,” he told a news conference in Harare.

The comment raises further questions about how much power Tsvangirai wields in the perilously fragile unity government. The longtime opposition leader joined the government with President Robert Mugabe in February but withdrew from the Cabinet earlier this month after accusing Mugabe’s party of human rights violations.

Mugabe, who has been in power for nearly three decades, is accused of trampling on human rights and democracy and holding the international community in contempt.

The U.N. investigator said he had a meeting scheduled Thursday with Tsvangirai, even though other Zimbabwean officials had told him he was not welcome and should come later.

“What he did is unprecedented in the history of U.N. protocol by forcing himself on a country,” said Mumbengegwi, a ranking ZANU-PF member. “They wanted to create a diplomatic incident.”

Upon returning to South Africa on Thursday, Nowak used almost the same language, calling his treatment a “serious diplomatic incident” as well as alarming evidence of the split in Zimbabwe’s coalition government.

Tsvangirai has stuck with the so-called unity government, saying it is the only way to rescue Zimbabwe from economic ruin and political violence.

Amnesty International’s Zimbabwe researcher, Simeon Mawanza, said Nowak’s barring reflects an “increased level of desperation among those forces who are opposed to the unity government.”

On Friday, foreign ministers from Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia — members of the Southern African Development Community — met separately with Mugabe and Tsvangirai in efforts to heal the split in the government. After the meetings, they said they would recommend to their heads of state that a summit be convened, a move for which Tsvangirai has pushed. They did not say where or when.

Congo President Joseph Kabila, who is chair of the regional group that pushed for Zimbabwe’s unity government, said Friday he was headed from South Africa to Zimbabwe, and also would meet Zimbabwe’s president and prime minister.

“I don’t believe that the problem has gotten out of hand,” Kabila told reporters in Pretoria, South Africa. “I still believe that the (unity) government is the only solution.”

Tsvangirai’s party has reported a recent surge in political violence, allegations that Mugabe’s party denies. Mugabe’s party has accused Tsvangirai’s party of not doing enough to persuade Western nations to lift travel and financial sanctions targeted at ZANU-PF leaders and their business allies.

Associated Press writer Donna Bryson in Pretoria, South Africa, contributed to this report.