ZIMBABWE:Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe has threatened to expel western diplomats whom he accuses of supporting the political opposition. He said diplomats who wanted to represent their countries had to "behave properly" or they would be thrown out.
Mr Mugabe used a meeting with members of his ruling party's youth wing to hit out at diplomats. "We will kick them out of this country," French news agency AFP quoted him as saying yesterday. "I have asked the minister of foreign affairs to summon them and read the riot act to them . . . We shall tell the ambassadors that this is not a country which is a piece of Europe."
Earlier, the main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, left hospital after treatment for what he called an "orgy" of police beatings, and vowed to keep battling President Mugabe.
Mr Tsvangirai, head of the Movement for Democratic Change, had been treated for a head wound and other injuries which, he claimed, were the result of a beating by police following his arrest at an anti-Mugabe protest.
Scores of other opposition supporters were arrested, and many said they had been beaten in custody. "Freedom is not cheap," Mr Tsvangirai said at his home in the capital, Harare, shortly after he was discharged.
"It's only when people lose freedom that they realise how precious the freedom is . . . the struggle continues," he said as he sat on a couch, his wrist bandaged and a blue beret covering a head wound.
Images of a badly bruised and limping Mr Tsvangirai on his way to the hospital earlier this week fuelled international outrage and threats by the US and other nations to tighten sanctions against Mr Mugabe.
Mr Tsvangirai, a former trade unionist who has challenged Mr Mugabe in several elections, said yesterday he was feeling better but had been told to relax by doctors. Doctors have not confirmed that he sustained a fractured skull.