UK cops break up sit-in at Zimbabwe embassy

UK cops break up sit-in at Zimbabwe embassy

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• Police stations bombed, MDC accused

• Zimbabwe warns Tsvangirai 'will pay a heavy price'

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By Staff Reporter

POLICE broke up a sit-in at Zimbabwe's embassy in London on Wednesday, arresting 10 people who were protesting against President Robert Mugabe's regime.

Police arrested seven men and three women who held a peaceful protest for about an hour inside the Zimbabwean High Commission near Trafalgar Square, police said.

The activists were protesting a crackdown this month on the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party and were demanding to speak to the ambassador, said Oliver Jangwa, an MDC branch chairman in northern England who helped organise the protest.

"They wanted to sit in there until they were addressed by the ambassador. They wanted to speak also to the foreign minister and perhaps Robert Mugabe himself," Jangwa said.

"They were prepared to spend the night there."

The protesters stormed the embassy building on The Strand at about 9.10am. The protesters were arrested and taken to nearby Charing Cross police station.

Western powers have vowed to keep up pressure on Mugabe.

Despite threats to Western diplomats should they continue to criticise his government, both Britain and the US have called for more sanctions against Mugabe's iron-fisted regime.

Meanwhile, a Tory MP has demanded that Mugabe should be stripped of his honorary knighthood.

Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett told Andrew Robathan (Blaby) that she believed he still held the honour but she was more concerned for the welfare of the people in the country than "whether or not" he had it.

Mugabe was created an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1994. In 2003 the Foreign Affairs Select Committee called for the honour to be removed.

Robathan accused the UK government at House of Commons Question Time of being "dilatory and slothful" over Zimbabwe. - AP/Staff Reporter

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