HARARE – The embattled Zimbabwean President Mnangagwa has expressed concern over the British Government’s unwarranted and blatant interference in Zimbabwe’s domestic affairs through an unholy alliance with some teachers unions, saying an investigation will be launched soon to establish the extent the British had gone in wilfully trying to interfere in Zimbabwe’s domestic affairs.
The President said the comments that were made recently by a junior minister in the British House of Lords that their government was meeting with trade unions to discuss their welfare are unwarranted.
On Tuesday The Herald published an article detailing how the British House of Lords spent time last week brazenly discussing the country’s internal affairs with a junior officer inadvertently exposing the erstwhile colonisers’ machinations to influence internal politics through engaging teachers unions.
Speaking during an address to the nation yesterday, the President said the extraterritorial concern by a foreign legislature on a sovereign African State, which was a full equal member of the United Nations, was grossly unwarranted in terms of tenets of international law and practice.
“Only last week, our country Zimbabwe became a subject of unmerited focus and debate in the British House of Lords.
“In the ensuing debate by that foreign legislative body with no jurisdiction over our country, a junior minister of Her Majesty’s Government in charge of Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, one Mister Tariq Mahmood, revealed that Her Majesty’s Government ‘has been meeting in Harare with various [trade] unions, including teaching unions, most recently in September 2021 on salaries and the impact of Covid-19’.”
The President added: “To us, this brazen disclosure was yet another confirmation of very gross, unwarranted and blatant interference in the domestic affairs of our country by the British government, contrary to rules and precepts of the Geneva Conventions which regulate inter-state relations.”
Mnangagwa said Zimbabwe had been a sovereign State since its independence in 1980 and was not affiliated to the Commonwealth after it voluntarily quit over differences related to the Land Reform Programme.
“Equally, civic groups, and teachers employed by the Zimbabwe Government to work here in Zimbabwe are not employees of the British government, whether by contract or by remuneration. Their activities, singly or in combination, have nothing to do with the British government, or any foreign government for that matter.
“Because of this brazen, self-confessed violation of our sovereignty and threat to our national security and stability by the British government, Government will institute a full and thorough investigation into this very grave matter,” he added.
