UN torture rapporteur Manfred Nowak said yesterday he would recommend that the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) take action against Zimbabwe after his expulsion from the country.
Zimbabwean officials deported Nowak yesterday after he was detained by security officials on arrival overnight
Nowak, the UNHRC’s special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, told reporters after arriving in South Africa that his mission had failed.
“I think that it is the end of the mission. I think I have not been treated by any government in such a rude manner than by the government of Zimbabwe. I will not [go] back,” Nowak said.
Nowak said he remained concerned about torture in Zimbabwe and would recommend that the UNHRC take action against Harare.
“I will report to the Human Rights Council and I will recommend to them to take necessary action in respect of Zimbabwe,” he said.
Nowak did not say what action the council might take against Zimbabwe.
He said he had been invited to Zimbabwe by Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, whose power-sharing deal with President Robert Mugabe is under severe strain.
“I think it sheds light on the present power structure of the unity government if the prime minister invites me for a personal meeting and his office is not in a position to clear my entrance to the country. That is a very alarming signal about the power structure of the present government,” Nowak said.
Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has stopped cooperation with Mugabe’s ZANU-PF in the unity government.
On Wednesday night, a Reuters reporter saw Nowak being approached by four security officials at Harare airport after he had cleared immigration.
Zimbabwe’s state-owned Herald newspaper accused Nowak of trying to “gatecrash into the country.”
The newspaper said Nowak had been informed by the government that he could not visit because the country was hosting foreign ministers from the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
“Government had already communicated to him that he would have to visit on a later date,” the Herald said.
Officials from the SADC, a regional grouping, opened talks yesterday with the rival Zimbabwean parties in a bid to patch up the rift threatening the power-sharing government.
Nowak’s invitation marked the first time Zimbabwe had offered to open up to an expert working for the UNHRC. The urgency of a fact-finding mission was highlighted by allegations of the harassment of MDC supporters and rights activists in the past few days, the UN said.
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