American officials say their team was in the country to assess governance issues, but was detained and interrogated before being deported.
NEW YORK TIMES
The government of the southern African nation of Zimbabwe detained, interrogated and deported officials and contractors working for the United States government last month, and this week accused them publicly of promoting “regime change” in their country.
The incident is the latest in the Zimbabwean government’s aggressive efforts to thwart both domestic and international challenges to its authority. The incumbent government claimed victory in a chaotic election last year that several independent observer missions said lacked fairness and credibility.
But it also points to a deeper tension over the United States’ proclaimed efforts to promote democracy around the globe. Some nations, including Zimbabwe, have accused America of meddling in their affairs and attempting to impose its values — as well as of hypocrisy, given the threats at home to its own democracy.
Leaders in Zimbabwe have grown closer in recent years to both China and to Russia, and have supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Zimbabwe sits on a wealth of lithium, a critical component in electric vehicles. But most Zimbabweans struggle to get by, coping with triple-digit inflation that has made their currency practically worthless. Many workers — both laborers and educated professionals — have left the country.
In a stern statement issued on Friday, Samantha Power, the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, said that last month, the Zimbabwean authorities verbally and physically intimidated U.S. government officials and contractors. They were detained overnight, interrogated at length and transported in unsafe conditions, Ms. Power said.
The U.S. officials had been assessing concerns about democracy, human rights and governance as part of a regular evaluation of the aid programs it supports in the country, a spokeswoman for the agency said in an email. They had arrived in the country in early February and had been working for 10 days before the Zimbabwean authorities confronted them, the spokeswoman said.
Zimbabwe’s treatment of the officials was a betrayal of the country’s stated commitment to build a stronger democracy and re-engage with the West, Ms. Power said.
“The people of Zimbabwe deserve better,” she said.
But the Zimbabwean government fired back. George Charamba, a spokesman for President Emmerson Mnangagwa, said in an interview with the state-owned media outlet Sunday Mail that the U.S. contractors had entered the country without receiving the proper clearance. He accused them of holding clandestine meetings with opposition politicians, nonprofit organizations and diplomats from other foreign nations.
“If America thinks it has a holy mission to refashion the politics of this country after its own image of democracy, they are out for a very rude awakening,” Mr. Charamba told the Sunday Mail.
U.S. officials say that the government team had the appropriate clearance to be in the country and that the Zimbabwean authorities had been properly notified about the mission.
