British and US convoy attacked in Zimbabwe

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By Angus Shaw

UNITED States and British diplomats were attacked Thursday as they tried to investigate political violence in Zimbabwe and a U.S. Embassy staffer was beaten, an embassy spokesman said.

U.S. Ambassador James McGee, who was not with the convoy, told CNN that Zimbabwean police and military officers and so-called war veterans, a group of often violent supporters of President Robert Mugabe, were responsible for what he called an "illegal action."

"The war veterans threatened to burn the vehicles with my people inside unless they got out of the vehicles and accompanied the police to a station nearby," McGee said, saying he was in touch with the group by mobile phone.

Five Americans, four Britons and three Zimbabweans were in the three-car convoy in Bindura, he said.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Paul Engelstad said the group was still being held some six hours after being stopped at a roadblock just north of Harare.

A British government spokesman later said the British diplomats had been released unharmed. But Downing Street spokesman Michael Ellam did not discuss the status of the American diplomats.

The opposition and rights groups have accused Mugabe of orchestrating violence and intimidation in the run-up to a June 27 presidential runoff.

Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena denied security agents had threatened the diplomats, saying instead that police were trying to rescue them from a threatening mob.

"It's unfortunate when diplomats behave like criminals and distort information," Bvudzijena said. "It is a very sad situation."

In mid-May, McGee had led a similar convoy that was stopped at a police roadblock. Police eventually let the convoy through, and a patrol car escorted them back to the U.S. Embassy before disappearing.

At one point during the May incident, a police officer threatened to beat one of McGee's senior aides. The officer got into his car and lurched toward McGee after he had demanded the officer's name. The car made contact with McGee's shins, but he was not injured. - AP

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