Mugabe’s minister tells western envoys to back off
By Tatenda Dewa | Harare Bureau |
Information minister, Christopher Mushohwe, has accused the United States and Canadian embassies in Harare of overstepping their mandates by issuing statements on recent violence.
The embassies expressed concern over demonstrations that turned violent when police broke them and called for government agencies to respect citizens’ constitutional right to freedom to protest peacefully.
Several protests occurred recently as citizens pushed for electoral reform and an end to the current economic crisis. Mushohwe said the statements by the two embassies amounted to interference with Zimbabwe as a sovereign nation.
“Zimbabwe is a sovereign state which is equal to any other in the world, including the US and Canada, whatever illusions ambassadors of those two countries here may harbour in their minds.
“Beyond diplomatic relations as regulated by the Vienna Conventions, there is nothing else that gives governments of those two countries or their emissaries here any special claim to our politics, or a judgmental role on occurrences,” he said.
He accused the two embassies of acting like bullies.
“Their statements last week were not only unacceptably repugnant, but vainly suggested their governments play father figure to a sovereign state, as if Zimbabwe is under some kind of joint US-Canadian trusteeship.
“For the record, Zimbabwe gained its independence in 1980 following a national liberation struggle which never enjoyed an iota of support from the west,” added Mushohwe, saying Zimbabwe would not take orders from any other country.
He told the US to back off from “lecturing” his government on human rights since it had allegedly imposed sanctions that was causing suffering among Zimbabweans.
“The US thus should never be allowed to blame the Zimbabwe Government for effects of its spiteful policies here. The least the US ambassador, Harry Thomas here can do is to keep his mouth shut, instead of compounding the crimes of his government against the people of Zimbabwe by parading false piety,” he said. Nehanda Radio
