Botswana's foreign minister has rejected accusations byZimbabwe that Botswana was training Zimbabwe opposition members to overthrowPresident Robert Mugabe.
The allegations were made as the Southern AfricanDevelopment Community (SADC) is about to send a team to Botswana to investigatethe claims by Zimbabwe.
Foreign Minister Phandu Skelemani said while it was truethere is a SADC investigation, Botswana is not training militants fromZimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
He told VOAthe accusations are an attempt by Zimbabwe to divertattention from President Mugabe's failure to resolve the economic and politicalproblems plaguing Zimbabwe.
"Itis true that there is an investigation; it is not true that we are training anyZimbabweans for military purposes," he said.
Skelemanisaid Zimbabwe has failed so far to provide evidence to support its claims.
"Theallegations were leveled against us by Mugabe himself, and we invited them tocome and sure us where these training camps are. So far they've not been ableto so. They only produced unsigned statements by two persons claiming that theyhad been trained in Botswana. They really can't say when did they get toBotswana, what documents did they use, if it is true. They have none of those.As far as we are concerned, the claim is a lie," Skelemani said.
BotswanaPresident Ian Khama has been a strong critic of Zimbabwe President RobertMugabe especially since that Zimbabwe's elections earlier this year.
Skelemanisaid Mugabe is using the two countries' somewhat rocky relations to divertattention from Zimbabwe's deepening political and economic problems.
"Ithink they are diverting attention from the problems which they have and theirfailure to implement the agreement signed on the 15 of September.They can come any day, any time, and show us where the training camps are, whotrained them because our training camps are known to the Zimbabweans, at leasttheir leaders in the army. We've got joint commissions and they have beenvisiting our training camps," Skelemani said.
hesaid Botswana would support the constitutional amendment before the Zimbabweparliament meant to pave the way for a unity government.
"Regardingthe constitutional amendment #19, to the extent that it would implement theglobal agreement of the 15 of September, we will obviously supportit in the hope that it will bring peace to Zimbabwe. As we have said before, wedon't think it's the best way of doing things, but at least it's a movement,"he said.
Skelemanisaid Botswana would have preferred a run-off election in Zimbabwe. But he saidBotswana supports the SADC position of a unity government.
"Becausethey failed through elections to produce a president, in accordance with thedecision of SADC, they can actually agree on power sharing. And because it'stheir country, we are not going to choose for them how they can best run thatcountry. Our preference of course would be a run-off. But this powering sharingagreement is really a rape of democracy," Skelemani said.
Hesaid the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) would welcome a run-offelection as long as President Mugabe's supporters are not allowed to in hiswords beat up people. Skelemani said that's why SADC wants such elections to beinternationally supervised.
Skelemanisaid the SADC team to investigate Zimbabwe's claims of MDC training camps inBotswana was supposed to have arrived in Botswana on the 11 ofDecember. But he said that meeting never took place because Botswana objectedto team's members.
Skelemanisaid he and Swaziland's foreign minister will meet this week in Brussels todiscuss the new date for the SADC team to visit Botswana.