FOREIGN Affairs Minister Sibusiso Moyo, was Friday afternoon attacked by angry protestors waving placards demanding the release of opposition MDC deputy national chairperson Job Sikhala.
Sikhala is in remand prison after being arrested and charged with subversion on Tuesday. The Zengeza West MP allegedly told party supporters at a rally in Bikita last Saturday that the opposition was planning to overthrow President Emmerson Mnangagwa before scheduled elections in 2023.
Moyo, Mnangagwa’s point-person in his efforts to re-engage the international community after decades of frosty relations under his predecessor Robert Mugabe is in London meeting top British officials and also to attend an international conference on media reform.
The Foreign Affairs Minister had just addressed British elites at globally acclaimed think-tank Chatham House when the attack took place.
In a video clip circulating on social media Moyo is seen battling to get into a waiting official car with aides pushing away his attackers.
The small crowd mainly made up of women pelted Moyo with water bottles, poured water on his head, assaulted him and called him names.
Former President Mugabe was attacked by gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell in March 2001 at the height of the land reform programme and as the then Zimbabwean leader’s relations with the West took a nasty nosedive.
Tatchell at the time claimed he wanted to effect a citizen’s arrest before he was bashed by Mugabe’s bodyguards.
Government was yet to comment on the matter. Moyo is a retired military general who became the face of the military coup that toppled Mugabe in November 2017 after he announced the move on national television.
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