Simon Khaya-Moyo feels the heat : Ambassador protests at protests

http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/page642.htm

HARARE, Mach 4, 2008 (thezimbabwetimes.com) - The Zimbabwean ambassador to South Africa was scathing about a series of protests staged by pro-democracy groups at the Zimbabwean embassy in Pretoria.

“I hesitate to give an iota of dignity to these misguided malcontents,” Simon Khaya Moyo told The Zimbabwe Times. He was responding to a series of protests by Zimbabwe Youth Network and National Constitutional Assembly members who picketed the embassy four times inside one week.







They were protesting against human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. They asked that an observer mission be allowed into Zimbabwe immediately to investigate the state of affairs in the run-up to the elections on March 29.

They are also demanded that millions of Zimbabweans in the Diaspora be allowed to vote. Khaya-Moyo speaking on the sidelines of the launch of Zanu-PF manifesto in Harare Friday denied that there was any abuse of human rights in Zimbabwe and said the forthcoming elections would be free and fair.

“What basic human rights are being undermined?” he asked.

He said the pro-democracy groups were acting like “spoilt brats”, and that they did not want to answer to anybody.

“They seem to have forgotten that they are Zimbabweans first of all,” he said.

He said the protestors would never accept that any election was free and fair as long as Mugabe wins.

“To them a free and fair election is one in which our President loses,” he said. “That is just unacceptable.”

At a recent protest, Revolutionary Youth Movement of Zimbabwe president Simon Mudekwa is quoted as having demanded that the Zimbabwean general election should be postponed, as it would not be free and fair under current legislation.

He says Zimbabwe must be forced to comply with regional guidelines governing the conduct of elections in SADC.

The youths have threatened to shut down the Zimbabwe embassy in South Africa.

“We have done all we could, tried to go via the SADC member states and the African Union but this dictator called Mugabe does not take heed,” Mudekwa said in a statement sent to The Zimbabwe Times. “The only practical means of dealing with him is to use minimum force such as closing of Zimbabwe embassies throughout the SADC region.”

He said his group wanted the Zimbabwean people to be liberated from oppression just as South Africans had been.

“The playing field before the elections still favours Zanu-PF, as the opposition is denied coverage by publicly funded State media,” Mudekwa said.

ZYM and NCA-SA planned to continue picketing the embassy in the run up to the March 29 election, he said.

He said the protests would culminate in a vigil at Beitbridge on the South African-Zimbabwe border on the night of Friday, March 28, before Zimbabweans go to the polls.