ZIMBABWE will not heed a proposal by Zanu PF to bring American and British business executives before state media to denounce their countries' sanctions, a minister said Wednesday.
President Robert Mugabe's party has demanded that the chief executives publicly criticise western economic restrictions imposed on Zimbabwe or forfeit control of their businesses.
Industry Minister Welshman Ncube said Wednesday threats of trial by media-style "kangaroo courts" further undermined efforts to stabilise already shaky investor confidence in the embattled economy.
It is illegal under the constitution to force individuals to make public their political opinions, Ncube said.
Mugabe and his Zanu PF party elite face numerous sanctions for alleged democratic and human rights violations in a decade of political and economic turmoil.
Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa has called for Cold War era-style confessions from executives of some 400 British and U.S. companies operating in the southern African nation.
He told a weekend rally that those executives who "fail to take a public position" will be punished anyway, and lose up to 90 percent of their shareholdings.
Money from seized shareholdings would be used to set up a new "anti-sanctions fund" to campaign aggressively against the measures and "all foreign companies operating in the country will be compelled to assist," Mnangagwa said.
The sanctions, targeted against Mugabe, his loyalists and government-owned businesses, include visa and travel bans and a freeze on foreign banking and any other business operations by them.
Mugabe insists economic restrictions have had a broader impact and have disrupted the economy.
Ncube described Mnangagwa's remarks as "unfortunate" and said the coalition as a whole will not allow foreign businessmen to be persecuted.
"If it was Zanu PF alone in government then it will have happened, but it is an inclusive government and we will not agree," Ncube said.