Zimbabwean Minister of Foreign Affairs Simbarashe Mumbengegwi summoned Western diplomats to a meeting on Monday to warn them they would be expelled if they gave financial or diplomatic support to opposition activists.
Mumbengegwi said that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe would not hesitate to kick out any diplomats who interfered in Zimbabwe's domestic politics.
Diplomats who attended the meeting said US Ambassador Christopher Dell, a critic of Zimbabwe's human rights abuses, walked out, dismissing the meeting as a "sham" and a "propaganda exercise for the state press," which was filming the event.
The meeting came as the US State Department released a statement calling on Mugabe to "allow all Zimbabweans the right to live without fear and to fully participate in the political process."
It said Mugabe would be held "personally responsible" for the arrests and beatings of opposition politicians, and the refusal to allow some to travel for medical treatment.
Mumbengegwi told the diplomats that the Vienna Convention prohibited foreign embassies from involving themselves in the internal affairs of a host nation. He said some diplomats had "gone too far," and offered food and water to opposition activists jailed last week.
"Providing food and water to people who have been brutalized in jail and who were deprived medical care and food, that is an act of human kindness that is entirely defensible. Expelling any embassy would only further isolate the Mugabe government," a diplomatic source in Harare said.
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