Zimbabwe's government defended its decision to briefly detain the US ambassador, saying on Friday that the envoy was lucky to be alive after straying into a secure zone near President Robert Mugabe's residence.
Zimbabwean state television reported on Thursday that US Ambassador Christopher Dell had been held for an hour by the Presidential Guard on Monday after entering a restricted area at the National Botanic Gardens near Mugabe's official Harare residence.
"The ambassador must consider himself very lucky that he is dealing with a professional army that the Zimbabwe National Army is," said Mugabe's spokesperson, George Charamba, in a statement on Friday.
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"Elsewhere, and definitely in America, he would have been a dead man. His adventure is really dangerous."
The Zimbabwean government said it had sent a letter of protest to the US embassy over what it called "a calculated disregard of the rules governing relations between states... clearly intended to provoke an unwarranted diplomatic incident".
The US embassy said in a statement that Dell, while walking in the National Botanical Gardens on Monday, had "inadvertently wandered into a poorly marked military area located in the midst of the park".
Military security had then detained him for more than an hour.
The hill has a view of one of President Robert Mugabe's official residences 2km away. It is not fenced off, but access has been restricted since 1981 when shots were fired at the residence from the top.
Dell had accepted apologies from two senior Zimbabwean foreign affairs officials over his brief detention, including an explanation that the guards who had held him did not know how to deal with issues involving diplomats, the statement said.
The ministry of foreign affairs sent the US embassy in Harare a protest note on Wednesday, "and the government of Zimbabwe has called attention to the incident in the media, citing Ambassador Dell's alleged illegal attempt to enter a secure area".
The ambassador was surprised that Harare had written a protest note and had gone to the media with the issue days after the incident, it said, adding: "We consider the incident closed."
The state-owned Herald newspaper quoted government sources yesterday as saying that the incident on Monday had been part of a US plan to effect "regime change" in Zimbabwe.
The foreign ministry said in a statement that Dell "intended to provoke an unwarranted diplomatic incident".
The newspaper said Dell had been detained by members of the Presidential Guard and released after the Foreign Affairs Ministry had intervened "to avoid a diplomatic stand-off".
The ministry added that Dell "purposefully proceeded to enter the zone and would have continued to enter the security installations were it not for the timely intervention of the Presidential Guard". - Reuters
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