Harare — THE motive of a visiting United States Congressional delegation that arrived in Zimbabwe on Wednesday have been questioned following their impromptu last-minute call on President Mugabe at State House yesterday just as they made their way to the airport.

The delegation had apparently not planned to meet President Mugabe and had only scheduled appointments with MDC-T officials, including Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

Well-placed sources revealed that the five-member delegation "realised that they had made their intentions too obvious and decided on a last-ditch meeting with President Mugabe to make their mission appear impartial".

Yesterday, the delegation made an unannounced visit to State House that "only went ahead out of courtesy though President Mugabe was surprised to hear they suddenly wanted to meet him".

President Mugabe, who is Head of State and Government as well as Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, and was in the process of accepting the credentials of three new ambassadors to the country when word arrived that the American delegation wanted to see him before they flew out of the country later in the day.

"It was a very short, unexpected and unnecessary meeting. They just introduced themselves and then seeing that the President was not amused by their behaviour, they said their goodbyes and left.

"The meeting was unnecessary because the President was already aware that they wanted to see him so that it would not be obvious that they had a hidden agenda in coming to the country," a source said.

The surce added that the delegation was in Zimbabwe following an invitation extended to them by PM Tsvangirai when he visited the United States in June this year.

Presidential spokesperson Mr George Charamba confirmed that the impromptu meeting took place but would not say if anything of importance had been discussed in the five-minute encounter, apart from the formality of introductions.

"Clearly, the Congressmen did not have the President on their schedule. The meeting was incidental to their mission in Zimbabwe. "The visit seems to have been focused on one party in the GPA. Their visit to State House was a self-fulfilling one and even the President was taken aback," he said.

Mr Charamba said the delegation said it would come back to Zimbabwe before the end of the year. On Wednesday soon after their arrival they met with PM Tsvangirai and the Parliamentary Select Committee tasked with spearheading the constitution-making process.

Yesterday morning they met Speaker of the House of Assembly Mr Lovemore Moyo before they then dashed off to State House to briefly meet the President before returning to the US.

The delegation was led by Mr Gregory Meeks and included Mr Jack Kingston, Mrs Sheila Jackson-Lee, Mr Melvin Watt and Mrs Marcia Fudge.

Mr Meeks sits on the board of the National Endowment for Democracy, a US State Department-funded organisation that has provided finance to a raft of non-governmental organisations that have been pushing the illegal regime change agenda in Zimbabwe.

Mrs Jackson-Lee voted in favour of the imposition of the illegal economic sanctions on Zimbabwe in 2001.

She has also backed sanctions against Sudan which the African Union has opposed and in April 2006 was arrested along with four other members of Congress and six other activists for disorderly conduct in front of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington.

She also endorsed Hillary Clinton last year ahead of the eventual overwhelming winner and first African-American President Barack Obama for the US presidency.

In their meeting with Speaker Mr Moyo, delegation leader Mr Meeks said his team had positive discussions with the Select Committee on constitution-making.

"We had a positive and upbeat conversation on the constitution-making and the parties have expressed commitment to working together. We understand this is a difficult process and the road would be bumpy and rocky. We are, however, hopeful that this would be overcome because the key is to fight through," he said.

Mr Meeks urged the three parties in the inclusive Government to abide by the commitments they have made.

Select Committee co-chairperson Cde Munyaradzi Paul Mangwana (Zanu-PF) said the discussion was frank and fruitful, adding: "We briefed them on the challenges we are facing as a committee. We stressed that we will, however, achieve our objective."

Another co-chairperson of the constitution committee, Senator David Coltart (MDC), said they had impressed on the delegation the need for the outside world to fully support the inclusive Government.