Zimbabwe may expel US envoy

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By Staff Reporter

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe is expected to summon and confront the US ambassador in Harare for a stinging attack blaming Zimbabwe's crisis on mismanagement and corrupt rule, state media reported.

Zimbabwe is battling its most severe economic downturn since independence from Britain in 1980, marked by one of the highest inflation rates in the world, unemployment above 70 per cent and shortages of fuel, food and foreign currency.

In his strongest criticism yet of Mugabe, US envoy Christopher Dell said last week the Zimbabwe government was responsible for plunging the southern African country into a crisis which has turned it into a beggar from a net exporter of food.

The government-controlled Sunday Mail said Mugabe would summon Dell this week ''for his undiplomatic behaviour that has seen him interfering in the internal affairs of the country by issuing misleading statements expected from an opposition party official rather than a diplomat.''

In a lead story headlined ''Riot act for US envoy Dell'', the weekly quoted ''impeccable sources'' in the foreign ministry as saying Mugabe -- who has a tradition of lecturing audiences for hours -- would ask Dell to explain charges that he was working with the British embassy in Harare in compiling a false report on rights abuses and a humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe.

''The president is not happy with Mr Dell's behaviour. The ambassador has been on a crusade uttering political statements expected from an opposition official and I think the president wants to put a stop to that,'' one official was quoted as saying.

''We are not sure when he will be summoned by the president but it's definitely this week,'' he said.

The state-run Herald newspaper on Monday said Dell risked being expelled "for his continued meddling in the internal affairs of Zimbabwe."

"Precedent shows that host countries reserve the right to expel a diplomat whose behaviour they feel is unbecoming or undiplomatic and Zimbabwe could take that route in the case of Mr Dell," the paper reported, citing the explusion of some American diplomats from Russia in 2001 for "activities incompatible with their status".

Dell and other US embassy officials in Harare were not available for immediate comment on Sunday while a senior Zimbabwean government official declined to talk about the issue.

Relations between the United States and Zimbabwe have soured in recent years with Washington accusing Mugabe's government of human rights abuses and rigging elections since 2000.

Dell's criticism of Harare at a public lecture at a Zimbabwean university last week follow a diplomatic dispute last month when he was briefly detained by the Presidential Guard after straying into a secure area near Mugabe's residence.

The government said Dell was lucky not have been killed and sent a letter of protest to the US embassy. The embassy said the ambassador had accepted apologies from two senior Zimbabwe foreign affairs officials over the incident.

The Sunday Mail quoted Mugabe's spokesman George Charamba as saying Dell was behaving like Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai: ''The government is very angry with this ambassador. He is trying to make himself a substitute of Tsvangirai by taking an opposition stance not expected from an ambassador.''

Mugabe, aged 81 and Zimbabwe's sole ruler since 1980, rejects accusations of bringing the economy to its knees and says it is a victim of sabotage by Western powers, including the United States, who are punishing him for his seizing white-owned farms and redistributing them to blacks - Reuters
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