Johannesburg — Zimbabwe's authorities have denied withdrawing the tourist visa issued to the head of the European Unions election observer mission, Pierre Schori.
Reports earlier on Friday said Schori had been accused by officials of making political statements, thereby violating his status as a tourist in the country and provoking the withdrawal of his visa.
Schori, Swedens ambassador to the United Nations, arrived in Harare last weekend as leader of the European Union's election observer team and was refused the accreditation granted to the 30 other European Union monitors. Zimbabwe has accused Sweden of bias against the Mugabe government and refuses to recognise Schori as the EUs chief election monitor for the 9-10 March presidential poll.
Zimbabwe's Home Minister, John Nkomo later said that immigration officers had warned Mr Schori to comply with the conditions of his tourist visa but had not revoked it, according to agency reports.
Speaking on Friday before Harare denied withdrawing Schori's visa, Sweden's Foreign Minister Anna Lindh said: "If they stick to this decision, he will have to leave the country in the afternoon. I think that the most likely thing is that he will be expelled, that the observers leave the country and that sanctions will be imposed." She added, however: "I think its important that we dont take decisions like this without discussing it with all sides in Zimbabwe."
Lindh said that if Schori were thrown out, it would "prove that Zimbabwe does not want a free and fair election."
The European Union has threatened 'smart', personal sanctions against Mugabe and 20 of his close aides and ministers if they failed to hold free and fair elections and if EU monitors and international journalists were denied entry into Zimbabwe or prevented from doing their work.
Schori led the EU observer delegation during the 2000 parliamentary elections in Zimbabwe which, at the time, he said could not be considered free and fair. He held President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party responsible for much of the pre-election violence.
Mugabe has been under considerable international pressure to allow credible and independent observers to monitor the presidential poll next month.
The Swedish diplomat was reported Friday morning to be discussing his status with EU officials in Harare. He told reporters he would speak to the media "when things have been clarified".
This latest controversy in Zimbabwe comes at a time of heightened tension and sporadic violence in the country ahead of the election next month, which the opposition claims cannot be free and fair because of stringent government restrictions which limit its ability to campaign.
On Friday, riot police, armed with guns and batons, broke up a peaceful protest in Harare, saying it was an illegal gathering, violating draconian new security laws.
The National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), which organised the demonstration, said dozens of marchers were arrested. Others put the figure of those detained at 10. No injuries were reported. The rally was called to condemn continuing political violence and repressive new laws, which ban opposition marches such as the NCA's.
Mugabe is facing the first major electoral challenge to his authority after 22 years in power. But he has dismissed his main competitor Morgan Tsvangirai, of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), as a stooge of white Zimbabweans and some Western governments.
Harare police opened an investigation Friday into an alleged plot to 'eliminate Mugabe, reportedly involving Tsvangirai. A video-tape, recorded in Canada in December, purportedly showed the opposition leader discussing a plot to kill Mugabe.
Tsvangirai said in a statement: "I would like to reiterate that neither myself nor the MDC has ever taken part in any conspiracy to assassinate President Mugabe, nor do we have any desire to do so." He said he wanted to win power through the ballot box.
But the National Security Minister, Nicholas Goche, said Zimbabwes opposition leader must assist the police investigation.
On Thursday, Tsvangirai said representatives of a Canada-based consultancy firm, Dickens and Madson, had tried to lure him into a trap and trick him, by offering to help enhance the image of his MDC party, leading to the video footage claims, first broadcast on Australian television.
Voicing similar concerns as the opposition about state-sponsored repression, the independent media in Zimbabwe have also accused their government of curbing freedom of speech and access to information.
Escape to South Africa
On the eve of the EU election monitor debacle, and coinciding with the video saga, Basildon Peta, the outspoken secretary-general of Zimbabwes Journalists Association and correspondent of the Financial Gazette in Harare, fled across the border into South Africa on Thursday night.
Arriving in Johannesburg International Airport on Thursday evening, Peta said he left Zimbabwe because he feared for his life and felt he was in grave danger.
A vocal critic of Mugabe, Peta deplored the possible expulsion of the EUs chief election observer, saying that people should question why the authorities in Zimbabwe were so selective about who could monitor the presidential poll.
"The Zimbabwe government wants to determine who should observe these elections. They have banned five or six European countries from being part of this observation team. Why, if they dont have anything to hide, are they so specific about who should monitor this election? They obviously want those countries that will issue a favourable report at the end of the elections and I have no confidence in the government whatsoever," said Peta.
He said he would have liked to see election observers arrive earlier in Zimbabwe, to witness the violent process as it unfolded and experience all the difficulties that the opposition is facing. "Whatever they (the international monitors) are doing now, I dont think it will be significant to change the situation now," he said.
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The journalist, who is the correspondent of the London daily Independent newspaper and The Star of Johannesburg, said he had suffered persistent death threats for the past two years, "since the turmoil in Zimbabwe started in February 2000, when President Mugabe unleashed his supporters on the commercial farms."
Peta said the Zimbabwean government had launched a sustained campaign of vilification against him.
"I have tried to work, and of course many of my colleagues too, we have all tried to work under very difficult conditions in Zimbabwe, but there comes a time when you say 'enough is enough'. I need a break, to assess the situation, to let the dust settle and go back when its safe to do so," he told the BBC. "My life was in big danger and I just felt I had to leave."
Peta denied this week's reports in the London Times newspaper that he had either fabricated or exaggerated a spell in police custody in Harare, and said that the governments inflammatory campaign against him had intensified after The Times report, so he realised it was time to go.
He was the first journalist to be detained under the Public Order and Security Act, shortly after it came into force in Zimbabwe.
Peta said he fled not because he was guilty of anything, but because he was concerned about what form further harassment might take. "You dont want to be a dead hero, its better, maybe, to be a living coward. Its unfortunate Ive had to leave, but its better that the dust settles and I can go back to my country."
