| Bob really doesn't understand, does he ... |
Zimbabwe state television reported on Thursday that U.S. ambassador Christopher Dell was held by the Presidential Guard on Monday after entering a restricted area at the National Botanic Gardens near Mugabe's official Harare residence. "The ambassador must consider himself very lucky that he is dealing with a professional army that the Zimbabwe National Army is," Mugabe's spokesman George Charamba said in a statement published by state media on Friday.
"Elsewhere, and definitely in America, he would have been a dead man. His adventure is really dangerous."
| Only if he got between a New Orleans cop and a new plasma screen TV. |
Dell was not available for comment but the U.S. embassy said in a statement he had been held for over an hour. "During an October 10 recreational visit to National Botanical Gardens in Harare Ambassador Chris Dell inadvertently wandered into a poorly marked military area located in the middle of the park," it said.
Dell had accepted apologies from two senior Zimbabwean foreign affairs officials over his brief detention, including an explanation that the guards who had held him did not know how to deal with issues involving diplomats, the statement said.
| They aren't used to being polite. |
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer, who is visiting neighbouring South Africa, said she did not have details of the Dell incident but that it would be an extraordinary move by Zimbabwe. "It would be extraordinary for a government to arrest an ambassador to their country, so if that has happened it certainly speaks to a lack of respect both for diplomatic norms as well as for the relationship the United States is trying to build to the people and country of Zimbabwe," she said.