Pressuring diplomats would make it harder for the international community to keep tabs on a government accused of repressing its people and ruining its economy.

Diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because the session was closed, said U.S. Ambassador Christopher Dell, an outspoken critic of Zimbabwe's human rights record, walked out of a meeting at which the warning to diplomats was delivered, after Foreign Minister Simearashe Mbengegwi said he would not respond to questions.

The foreign minister, acting on instructions from President Robert Mugabe, told the Western diplomats that the Vienna Convention governing diplomatic behavior prohibited foreign embassies from involving themselves in the internal affairs of the host nation.

The Japan Times Weekly: March 24, 2007
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