Zimbabwe Ambassador Jacqueline Zwambila has asked the Australian government for asylum because she fears for her safety if she returns to her home nation.
With four days remaining as ambassador, she has moved out of her residence with no intention of using the business class ticket provided by her government to fly home on Tuesday.
“I don’t feel safe about returning to Zimbabwe at all,” she said.
Zwambila will rely on a bridging visa after her diplomatic status is canceled, and a small number of family members who have been with her in Australia also hope to gain protection under her application.
One treasured item she took with her from the residence when she moved out on Friday was a framed graduate diploma in international relations from the Australian National University, which she received two weeks earlier.
Before her departure, the diploma hung in the hall of her residence opposite a portrait of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe. The portrait has been left at the residence in the Canberra suburb of Red Hill.
Zwambila, politically aligned to Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was recalled from her post without being offered another job after Mugabe’s Zanu-PF Party controversially won the country’s July 31 general election.
Mugabe, who turns 90 in February, won power for the next five years with 61 per cent of the vote compared to the MDC’s 39 percent, amid claims of intimidation and tampering with electoral rolls and the allegation that up to 1 million voters were turned away from polling places.
Mugabe called on his opponents to accept defeat or commit suicide. “But I tell them even dogs will not sniff at their flesh if they choose to die that way,” he said.
Zwambila said Mugabe and Zanu-PF stole the election and had followed up with increasing arrests of MDC supporters on trumped-up charges. She fears indefinite custody if she returned.
She said among other allegations she has been threatened with arrest in Zimbabwe because a court found she had not paid $2,700 to a tradesman who worked on her house there. She denied owing the money. Zwambila said the $150,000 house would be auctioned against her will to pay the bill.
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