Zimbabwe's government said yesterday that Canada's decision to impose sanctions on the southern African country in protest against the harassment of its citizens was "regrettable".
Canada said on Friday it was unhappy about the assault over a week ago of its top diplomat in Harare and a Canadian international aid group director by self-styled veterans of Zimbabwe's 1970s war against white-minority rule.
"The decision to impose sanctions is regrettable [but] Canada is merely saying something it and one or two other countries had already decided on," Zimbabwe's state news agency ZIANA quoted an unnamed government official as saying.
"It's strange that Canada acted the way it did . . . No foreign national or diplomat is under threat in Zimbabwe," he added.
Canada suspended new development aid, cut off export financing and banned Zimbabwe's participation in Canadian peacekeeping training courses.
Ottawa protested to Harare after High Commissioner James Wall was pushed last week when he tried to stop the militants from abducting the director of the aid agency CARE International.
He was then forcibly dragged to the offices of President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party because of a dispute over a sacked worker.
Britain, South Africa and Germany have also complained to Zimbabwe after attacks on their nationals by the militants, who accuse aid organisations and some diplomatic missions of supporting political opposition to Mr Mugabe.
Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe government denied charges by a panel of international press rights groups that it has created a climate of intimidation against journalists.
"At no time did we say that we threaten journalists with violence," said the Information and Publicity Minister, Mr Jonathan Moyo, responding to a report in a Sunday newspaper.
An international co-ordinating committee of press freedom organisations visited Zimbabwe last week and called on the government to uphold the rule of law, ensure the safety of journalists, investigate abuses of press freedom and end its campaign of intimidation, among other issues.
The Sunday Standard quoted members of the visiting delegation as saying that government officials had told them during a meeting that independent media reporters who "provoked [ruling party supporters] should accept they would get a violent response".
Mr Moyo said: "It is preposterous. We are a responsible government and we understand fully what our responsibility is not only to journalists, but to everyone who . . . is entitled to protection by the law."
The visitors said after their meeting with Mr Moyo in the capital last week that they had little hope for change.
"Mr Moyo, in my opinion, saw nothing wrong with the situation," said Mr David Dadge of the Vienna-based International Press Institute, adding that Mr Moyo had insisted the government was enforcing the law.
"The government is doing little or nothing to change the situation in Zimbabwe," Mr Dadge said.
But Mr Moyo, upset by the conclusions of the delegation, said: "It is an example of abuse of courtesy by a visiting team."
As a result of the "unwarranted distortion and misrepresentation" of facts by visiting delegations, Mr Moyo said the government had introduced new regulations regarding similar visits.
"We will protect the truth by meeting these people in public, we will no longer extend the courtesy of a private meeting," said Mr Moyo.
He added that the government would either refuse to meet them or would do so in the presence of the media or other interested parties.
"Meeting them gives them the credibility they do not deserve. They are partisan before they arrive and . . . have already made up their views," Mr Moyo said.