HARARE, (Reuters) – U.N. human rights expert Manfred Nowak was detained at Harare airport yesterday by Zimbabwean security agents, even though he said he had been invited by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
The Austrian academic arrived in Zimbabwe from Johannesburg, a stopover over on his way to Harare, where a power-sharing deal between Tsvangirai and long-time ruler Robert Mugabe is under severe strain.
Nowak, reached by Reuters on his mobile phone, said he faced deportation to South Africa and added: “I had not anticipated this. This is a serious diplomatic incident.”
A Reuters reporter saw Nowak being approached by four Zimbabwean security officials at Harare airport after he had cleared immigration.
His passport was taken by the officials who later led him and two colleagues back to a VIP lounge where they were to be detained overnight.
“They have confiscated our passports and we are now in some area of the departure lounge,” Nowak said.
“Two things have to happen. We are told we have to get clearance from the Minister of Foreign Affairs or if we can’t, we would be put on the next flight back to Johannesburg.”
Nowak was in South Africa when he was told the Zimbabwe government had postponed his visit, but he told Reuters he had an invitation from Tsvangirai.
“I have produced the invitation from the PM but the immigration officials are insisting that we need the clearance from the protocol officer from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” Nowak said.
“We have been in touch with the Prime Minister’s office and they are running around to try get that clearance. I have an appointment to meet the PM tomorrow at 10 a.m.”
The visit comes amid renewed tensions between Mugabe and Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which has stopped cooperation with Mugabe’s ZANU-PF in the unity government. Mugabe, who has led the country since independence in 1980, formed a power-sharing government with Tsvangirai to end months of feuding in the impoverished country. But Tsvangirai two weeks ago said he was boycotting the arrangement until sticking points had been resolved.
Zimbabwe’s Foreign Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi from Mugabe’s ZANU-PF, who was at the airport when Nowak arrived, did not intervene. He later left with an official from the regional Southern African Development Community, part of a team set to review the operations of the unity government formed in February.
Nowak’s invitation marked the first time Zimbabwe had offered to open up to an expert working for the U.N. Human Rights Council. Nowak is the council’s special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
