By Karen MacGregor

The bad news from Zimbabwe just keeps on coming. With less than three weeks to go before Zimbabwe’s presidential run-off, forces loyal to President Robert Mugabe are cracking down rather than loosening up. On Wednesday, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was held by police for nine hours in a police station in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city. The reason for his detention? That he’d drawn a big crowd to one of his campaign rallies. Although the autocratic Mugabe avoided releasing the official results of the initial presidential ballot, it is widely accepted that Tsvangirai beat the aging autocrat who has led Zimbabwe since its independence from Britain in 1980. However, the run-off is taking place on June 27 because it is not clear that Tsvangirai won the necessary 50 percent of the vote to avoid a second round at the polls. As an angry Tsvangirai charged that his detention demonstrated the lengths that Mugabe was prepared to go to “try and steal” the runoff, rights activists said that alleged Mugabe supporters had thrown gasoline bombs at one of Tsvangirai’s party offices, killing at least two officials.

And in perhaps a more telling sign of how little Mugabe-currently attending the food summit in Rome-cares about international opinion, police and pro-Mugabe militants took the extreme step of attacking U.S. and British diplomats on Thursday. The diplomats were traveling in a convoy to investigate political violence ahead of the election. An official at the U.S. Embassy in Harare, who asked that his name not be used, told me about the high-speed diplomatic car chase and what the incident says about the upcoming vote. Some excerpts from our conversation:

MacGregor: What happened to the U.S. diplomats in Zimbabwe today?
Embassy official: A three-vehicle convoy set out from Harare this morning, heading for the town of Bindura about 80 kilometers [50 miles] to the north. The purpose was normal diplomatic activity - to find out what’s going on. Our diplomats like to get out of the embassy in Harare to talk to people, especially in view of recent violence in Zimbabwe and the coming election.
 
There were three U.S. diplomats and one Zimbabwean in one vehicle. A second was carrying four British diplomats. In the third were four Zimbabweans, including one U.S. embassy staff member. As the party was leaving a house in Bindura, they were accosted by police and told to accompany them to the police station. The diplomats called the embassy by cell phone, and were told by Ambassador [James] McGeee not to go to the station. The Vienna Convention allows for free movement of diplomats, so they told the police that if they had a problem, it should be taken up with the embassy.
 
The police tried to let air out of the tires of the U.S. car, and they fled, trying to make their way back to Harare. The U.K. vehicle also left the scene. There was a high-speed chase, with the police trying to run the US diplomats off the road, placing everybody in danger. The police then backed off - they knew there was a roadblock ahead near the town of Mazowe. Our car was stopped and police surrounded it with strips of spikes. They ordered the diplomats out of the car, but they refused. A crowd gathered - police, military intelligence officials and ‘war veterans’ [a shorthand for pro-Mugabe militias, some of whom fought in the 1970s liberation struggle against white minority rule.]
 
We were in constant contact with the diplomats, who told us that the war veterans were threatening to burn the car and kill them. They were very worried that the situation would escalate out of control. They stayed in the car. We sent a team to the scene - a security officer, a defense attaché and a local embassy staff member. They got there, and the police put strips of spikes around their vehicle too. At one point the British diplomats, who were trying to find their way back to Harare, also arrived at the roadblock and were detained. This impasse lasted several hours. The embassy meanwhile got in contact with the ministry of foreign affairs, which eventually sent a team out to negotiate with the police. The ordeal started at about 11am, and ended at 4pm - six hours.
 
Was anybody hurt?
At one point the police put their hands on the U.S. security officer, but he was not injured. In Bindura, when the group was accosted by the police, they started punching one of the Zimbabweans from the third car. He was hurt, but not seriously. The Zimbabwean car managed to make it safely back to Harare. The police have given as reasons for the incident that they were checking to see whether the vehicles had been stolen, and that the diplomats had not complied with the government’s rule that diplomats need official permission 48 hours before traveling outside a 40 kilometer [25 miles] perimeter around Harare. Under the Vienna Convention, diplomats are not required to notify authorities of their movements at all, but under protest we do notify the authorities of the movement of diplomats - and had done that ahead of today’s trip, although 24 hours rather than 48 hours in advance.
 
How does the U.S. view today’s diplomatic incident?
We view it very seriously. This comes at a time when the Zimbabwean government and ruling party are ignoring their own laws, and now they are also ignoring international conventions that they are party to. There is a systematic effort to win the election at any cost by intimidating local people to the extent that they are too scared to vote, and stopping diplomats and others from seeing what is going on. We are certainly going lodging a protest with Zimbabwe’s foreign minister, and U.S. officials are trying to speak to Mugabe directly in Rome. We are also talking to the British government about the incident.
 
What in are the implications of this and other incidents - the arrest of Tsvangirai, the expulsion of food aid agencies, ongoing violence, etc - for the 27 June election?
Diplomatically, this is a very serious incident, but it is not serious relative to Zimbabweans being beaten, arrested and tortured. Or Morgan Tsvangirai, the presidential candidate, being detained, opposition MPs being arrested, and opposition supporters being killed. What portends ill for the election is the widespread violence, and the intimidation of Zimbabwe’s people. With only three weeks to go to the election, we are deeply concerned about the difficulty of it being free and fair.
 
Would the US consider pulling its diplomats out of Zimbabwe?
I don’t think we will be pulled out. The U.S. being here provides some support to Zimbabwe’s people.