HARARE (AFP) - Zimbabwean immigration officials ordered a fact-finding mission from South Africa`s biggest trade union movement to leave after they defied a government ban, the leader of the South African team said.
Harare had earlier said the trip to assess the economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe was "not acceptable" but the team was allowed in on condition they did not meet with certain civic groups, terms they refused to accept.
The team members, who arrived here late Monday, were forced to check out from their hotel on Tuesday after they met with their Zimbabwean counterparts but were stuck at the airport hours after being escorted there by police.
"They`ve told us to go back. They tell us we must go back because in our passports we were given only one day`s stay," Violet Seboni, the leader of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) team, told AFP.
"We are not angry, we expected this ... at least the world will now know the real Zimbabwe," she said.
The government late Tuesday issued a statement.
"Some dubious individuals claiming association with COSATU and working with Tony Blair`s well-known anti-Zimbabwe, pro-western interests opposed to Zimbabwe`s land reforms, last night flew into the country in utter disregard of objections of the Zimbabwean government.
"This visit ... constitutes a direct and most frontal challenge to the sovereignty of the republic of Zimbabwe," the information ministry communique said, adding that Harare "brooks no interference."
An AFP correspondent saw the group being led by police and immigration officials into the departure lounge at Harare international airport just before the departure of the last flight to Johannesburg.
The British Airways flight left without them because the team members did not have tickets.
"We are still in the country. They took us from the hotel to take us back home, but they could not provide us with the tickets so the plane left," Seboni said, speaking on her mobile telephone.
"They must give us tickets because it`s them that want us to get out," she said, adding: "We are telling them we cannot sleep at the airport tonight. We are not criminals and we want to be taken to a hotel."
The next flight to Johannesburg leaves on Wednesday morning.
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union (ZCTU), meanwhile, said it was trying to seek legal recourse to reverse the order.
"Our lawyers are working on an urgent High Court order to stop the deportation," ZCTU spokesman Mlamleni Sibanda said.
Patrick Craven, a COSATU spokesman in Johannesburg denounced the move, saying it was a slap in the face of both his organisation and the South African government.
"COSATU is appalled at the conduct of the Zimbabwe police," he said, adding that the mission had been scheduled to meet the South African ambassador to Harare later Tuesday.
The National Constitutional Assembly, a pro-democracy group that was to meet the COSATU team, said the deportation order showed "there is no freedom of assembly" in Zimbabwe.
Before the mission left for Harare on Monday evening, Craven said the objective of the visit was to gain "an accurate picture of the situation in the country" with a view to "resolving some of the problems facing Zimbabwe, particularly with its trade unions."
The once-model economy is run down and a political impasse has made the lot of the common man -- already grappling with triple-digit inflation, serious unemployment and food shortages -- even more onerous.
A spat between COSATU and the Zimbabwean government could be a serious embarrassment for South African President Thabo Mbeki, who has so far espoused a policy of "quiet diplomacy" with his country`s northern neighbour.
10/26/2004 - 17:38 GMT - AFP