United States ambassador to Zimbabwe, Brian A. Nichols, was summoned by the country's government over a senior White House official declaration about the African nation using George Floyd's death's riots to tamper with his country's internal affairs.
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Robert O’Brien, Donald Trump’s national security advisor said the country was among external adversaries."Countries such as Russia, China, Iran, and Zimbabwe were adversaries that were using the unrest to stoke tensions in the United States," he said.
Strains between Harare and Washington D.C go back for a long time since in the past the U.S. has criticized how human rights are handled in Zimbabwe, especially during protests. In response to the subpoena, Nichols stated that "the United States would continue to speak out against injustices at home and abroad."
Responding to O'Brien's statements, Zimbabwe’s Foreign Affairs Minister Sibusiso Moyo denounced that the accusations were “false and deeply damaging to a relationship already complicated due to years of prescriptive megaphone diplomacy and punitive economic sanctions. Zimbabwe is not and has never been an adversary of the U.S.”
“We take due note of the measures deployed by the U.S. authorities to deal with the challenges currently confronting them. At the same time, we recall the harsh U.S. criticism and condemnation of our own response to multiple instances of illegal, violent civil unrest,” Moyo added.
Since Wednesday several cities in the U.S. have suffered violent protests due to the murder of George Floyd, a Black man who died of asphyxiation by a policeman in Minneapolis, on May 25. The subpoena came hours after Trump stated that this violent wave is the work of outside groups.