Britain complains as ZANU PF supporters mob aid ceremony

Britain has sent a formal diplomatic complaint to Zimbabwean authorities in protest over the harassment of a diplomat and attempts by ruling Zanu-PF party supporters to disrupt the handover of a British aid project.

In a statement yesterday, the British embassy said president Robert Mugabe's party bused-in protesters to a mission hospital in the east of the country where the diplomat, second secretary Sarah Bennett, was handing over British-funded hospital equipment.

Demonstrators mobbed local officials and visiting dignitaries, demanding the lifting of western sanctions targeted at Mr Mugabe and his ruling elite. It was "deeply depressing" the project was subjected to party propaganda, the statement said.

No violence was reported, but the incident came amid rising tensions and a new upsurge in political violence across Zimbabwe ahead of elections due later this year.

Ms Bennett was in the remote Mutasa rural district on Wednesday to donate mortuary equipment the area had long lacked.

Rowdy demonstrators carried placards describing the prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai - the former opposition leader in a fragile two-year power sharing coalition with Mr Mugabe - as a "puppet" of the West.

British ambassador Mark Canning said that Britain had spent more than $100 million (£60m) in aid for local communities in Zimbabwe last year.

And he dismissed claims that visa, business and banking sanctions on Mr Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party by Britain and the European Union had hurt Zimbabweans as a whole.

"Only one in 70,000 Zimbabweans are affected by the EU's restrictive measures - because they are targeted at those responsible for human rights abuses and behaviour which undermines democracy and good governance," he said.

Last Sunday, human rights activists reported that political tension and violence rose markedly in January ahead of proposed elections this year, even though a date for the vote has not been set.

Mob attacks, threats, assaults, questionable arrests by police and at least one shooting were reported in clashes between rival party supporters in Harare and its suburbs.

Zimbabwe's state-run radio has accused the prime minister of trying to spark anti-government uprisings similar to those seen in Tunisia and Egypt.

An independent doctors' group said on Thursday it had evidence from witness accounts that at least 70 Mugabe militants were brought by truck to the western Mbare township, the centre of new clashes this week that left nine people injured, three of them in hospital.

Calm returned to downtown Harare after mobs chanting Zanu-PF slogans besieged the offices of the Tsvangirai-led city council on Wednesday.

Mr Tsvangirai entered a coalition with Mr Mugabe after violence-plagued elections in 2008.

Mr Mugabe has called for elections in 2011 to bring an end to bitter disputes over power sharing in the coalition. Meanwhile, local media reported that the Chinese government has offered Zimbabwe $3 billion for its vast platinum reserves - the entire annual GDP of the country is around $6 billion.