adminJustice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa said this during an interview on BBC’s programme HardTalk last week.
“As a sovereign country we will invite who we want to observe our elections (but) let me give you this indication, we will invite Sadc, we will invite Comesa, we will invite AU, we will invite those countries which have not imposed sanctions against us.
“For one reason those countries which have imposed sanctions have a regime change agenda, they are partisan, they are not objective, they come with preconceived conclusions and ideas and so they cannot come to observe and give an objective report,” Minister Chinamasa said.
The EU has removed 81 individuals and eight companies from sanctions list, but retained President Mugabe, the First Lady Amai Mugabe service chiefs, war veteran leader and the Zimbabwe Mining Corporation and the Zimbabwe Defence Industries.
Critics have slammed this move as part of efforts to effect regime change through the so-called security sector reforms.
Minister Chinamasa defended service chiefs who have spoken against Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in the past saying their remarks were prompted by the PM’s behaviour.
“Tsvangirai has been moving around holding secret meetings with generals from Nato countries without advising his colleagues in Government what in fact he is discussing, what military subject he was having with them. That creates the impression that in fact he is part of the agenda to effect regime change,” he said.
“He has been gallivanting in Western capitals holding meetings and he doesn’t brief his colleagues what goes on in those meetings and in fact when he goes into those meetings he excludes embassy staff from those meetings and now this raises suspicion surely.”
PM Tsvangirai secretly met former US Supreme Allied Commander of Nato Forces Europe, General Wesley Clark, during his visit to Austria in April last year.
Gen Clark commanded Operation Allied Forces in the Kosovo war during his term as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe of Nato from 1997 to 2000. He also took part in several other wars in the Gulf, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, which left thousands of innocent civilians dead.
Details of the hour long meeting he had with Gen Clark have not been made public up to now.
Minister Chinamasa said there was nothing amiss with the recent arrest of lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa and four other officials from the MDC-T saying no one was above the law.
“People commit crimes irrespective of their political affiliation . . . the police have a right to arrest people who commit crimes and they do so based on prima fascie evidence that is available to them and they do not ask anybody, they do not ask politicians, they do not ask us when and where they are going to arrest those people.”
He said police had lawfully obtained a search warrant to search premises belonging to the Institute for Democratic Alternatives for Zimbabwe when Ms Mtetwa was arrested.
“She is not immune from arrest if she commits a crime and blocking a lawful search on the basis of a lawful warrant of search is obstruction of justice, it will be obstruction of justice in Zimbabwe as it is in the UK and as it is anywhere,” Minister Chinamasa said.
The minister also said the confiscation of radios by the police was not because Zimbabwe was averse to diverse views but questioned the manner in which they were imported into Zimbabwe.
He said a number of embassies had abused their diplomatic privileges to import the gadgets without paying the necessary taxes.
He slammed pirate radio stations beaming messages into Zimbabwe.
“Those are propaganda regime change radio stations your SW Radio Africa, Voice of America, Voice of the People broadcasting from Netherlands. They are sponsored by the your respective governments to effect regime changes because they all demonise Zanu PF, they are just for demonising and broadcast illegally into the country,” Minister Chinamasa said.
Online Reporter