'Protesters will live to regret if they repeat Friday's violence,' says Charamba

The government has warned that protesters will live to regret if they try to repeat last Friday's violent demonstrations in Harare.

Protesters led by the MDC-T and other opposition parties took to the streets on Wednesday and set alight ZBC and police vehicles before repeating the rampage on Friday, where they disrupted the Harare Agricultural Show and went on a looting spree in various shops in the capital.

The Presidential Spokesperson and Permanent Secretary of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services, Mr George Charamba said the protestors have crossed the line and the government will not sit and watch while some citizens are turning Zimbabwe into a war zone.

"Imagine that the agricultural show is time for people to go for fun seeing various exhibitions. Imagine also that we had a VVIP visitor in the form of a Vice President from Sierra Leone and we find some rogue elements setting the capital on fire. That is unacceptable and we won't allow that to happen again. They have crossed the line, and have got their last chance," said Mr Charamba.

Mr Charamba also took a swipe at the South African based television station, ANN7 for flaunting the basic principles and ethics of journalism by trying to justify the violent protests in Zimbabwe.

The Minister of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services, Dr Christopher Mushohwe slammed western embassies' recent utterances on the Zimbabwean protests, saying they must not interfere or "even give themselves an imperious role of judging our politics here."

"Statements by the US and Canadian Embassies to Zimbabwe on recent demonstrations by the opposition is clear hostility towards the government of Zimbabwe. Beyond diplomatic relations as regulated by the Vienna Convention, there is nothing else that gives governments of those two countries or their emissaries here any special claim to our politics or judgemental role on role on occurrences here. Their statements last week were not only unacceptably repugnant, but vainly suggested their governments play father figure to a sovereign state, as if Zimbabwe is under some kind joint US-Canadian trusteeship," said Minister Mushohwe.

He added that 'before both ambassadors issue out their condescendingly sick statements on local politics, and on the upholding of human rights here, let them pause a while and examine their home environments where rights of men and women of colour, and rights of indigenous populations, are daily wantonly trampled upon by their own governments, with absolutely no recourse to countless victims.'