despotism
Posted at 1:10pm on Jun. 5, 2008 U.S. representatives assaulted, detained in Zimbabwe for asking too many questions
You don't like that we arrested the political opposition leader? Well then, let's see how you like us arresting *you*!
By Jeff Emanuel
Apropos of Leon's post on the tyranny of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwean regime comes this story of events from our Western overnight:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Zimbabwe police stopped and detained U.S. and British embassy staff, slashing the tires of the cars they were traveling in, on Thursday in a move the U.S. ambassador blamed on the southern African country's government.
"Police put up a roadblock, stopped the vehicles, slashed the tires, reached in and grabbed telephones from my personnel, and the war veterans (Mugabe's supporters) threatened to burn the vehicles with my people inside unless they got out and accompanied police to a station nearby," U.S. Ambassador James McGee said in an interview on CNN.
"We do believe this is coming directly from the top," he said.
And, from the AP:
Paul Engelstad, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy, says a U.S. Embassy staffer was beaten and tires of cars in the convoy were slashed.
Engelstad says the group was still being detained at a roadblock in rural Zimbabwe.
He says U.S. Ambassador James McGee, who did not go on the trip, was pressing Zimbabwean officials to release them.
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