Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's current trip to Morocco has touched a nerve with George Charamba, spokesman for President Robert Mugabe, who says the prime minister traveled to Rabat as part of a diplomatic effort to engineer a Libyan-style scenario of Western intervention for regime change in Harare.
A recent column in the state-controlled Herald newspaper signed by Nathaniel Manheru - long considered a pen name for Charamba - accused Mr. Tsvangirai of using the media to project an image of violence and chaos in Zimbabwe.
Morocco is a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, and Mr. Tsvangirai has recently visited other African Security Council members such as Gabon, South Africa and Nigeria, and met with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. He is scheduled to visit Washington later this year, adding to Zanu-PF anxieties.
But sources in Mr. Tsvangirai's power-sharing Movement for Democratic Change say the prime minister went to Morocco to address the prestigious Amadeus Institute, a think tank, with the likes of Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Libyan Interim Prime Minister Abdurraheem El-Keib.
International relations expert David Monyae told VOA reporter Blessing Zulu that it would be premature in any case for the UN to intervene in Zimbabwe, where political tensions are steeply on the rise in anticipation of national elections some time in 2012.
