The leader of South Africa's biggest trade union federation, COSATU, said the South African government's policy of "soft diplomacy" towards Zimbabwe has failed, news reports said on Wednesday. "Just talking softly, saying please to President Robert Mugabe has not helped," COSATU secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi told the independent eTV television station on Tuesday night.
Vavi said it was clear that the expulsion at the weekend of two foreign journalists from Zimbabwe was an attempt by Mugabe's government "to silence those who are critical". Meanwhile, on Tuesday the director-general of the foreign ministry, Sipho Pityana, said Zimbabwe had assured South Africa that a Uruguayan journalist and a BBC correspondent had been expelled because their work permits were not in order, not because the government was clamping down on the press.
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