(Bloomberg) -- Zimbabwe summoned the U.S. ambassador over a White House official's remarks suggesting the southern African nation is exploiting protests over the killing of George Floyd.
After Senator Marco Rubio said on Twitter that at least three unidentified “foreign adversaries” used social media to stoke and promote violence in the U.S., National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien later identified Zimbabwe, China and Iran among America's adversaries.
Protests erupted across the U.S. at the weekend demanding justice for Floyd, who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes during an arrest for an alleged counterfeit $20 bill.
“I want to tell our foreign adversaries, whether it's a Zimbabwe or a China, that the difference between us and you is that that officer who killed George Floyd, he'll be investigated, he'll be prosecuted, he'll receive a fair trial,” O'Brien said in an interview with broadcaster ABC. “The American people that want to go out and protest peacefully, they're going to be allowed to seek redress from their government, they're not going to be thrown in jail for peaceful protesting.”
In a statement issued after he met Foreign Minister Sibusiso Moyo on Monday, U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe Brian Nichols highlighted the state's failure to bring to justice those responsible for the disappearance of opposition activists including Patrick Nabanyama and Itai Dzamara.
Nick Mangwana, a spokesman for Zimbabwe's government, said the nation doesn't consider itself an adversary of the U.S. government. The U.S. is Zimbabwe's biggest aid donor.
“We prefer having friends and allies to having unhelpful adversity with any other nation including the USA,” said Mangwana in a statement on his official Twitter account. George Charamba, a spokesman for President Emmerson Mnangagwa, declined to comment.
O'Brien said the foreign adversaries will face repercussions, without specifying what they'll be.
“There'll be a response and it'll be proportional, but this is not something that our adversaries are going to get away with for free,” he said.
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