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The British Ambassador to Zimbabwe and three other Western diplomats were intercepted and detained by police yesterday as they tried to investigate the violence being inflicted on Zimbabwe’s rural population since the elections in March.

Andrew Pocock was held with the American, Japanese and European Union Ambassadors, on a rural road about 90 miles (150km) north of the capital, Harare. The diplomats, accompanied by journalists, saw an interrogation and command centre run by ruling Zanu (PF) party militias on a farm in the district, and visited two run-down local hospitals where scores of people were recovering from wounds sustained through beatings.

The initiative by the group, which also included the deputy ambassadors of Tanzania — which holds the chairmanship of the African Union — and The Netherlands, is unique in Zimbabwe’s recent history.

Since early April and the first confirmation of electoral victory by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the Government has deployed thousands of supporters to “discipline” people, mostly in rural areas, for having “voted the wrong way”. Their aim is to ensure that they vote differently in the expected presidential election run-off between President Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader.

According to medical records, 24 people have been murdered and nearly a thousand have needed treatment in hospital in what Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights said at the weekend was unprecedented brutality and callousness.

The convoy of 11 diplomatic vehicles had finished its tour yesterday when it was stopped at a police roadblock. The ambassadors were told that their vehicles were obstructing traffic and they were ordered to follow the police to the station. The diplomats refused.

Two police vehicles parked across the road to stop the convoy and were quickly reinforced by senior police officers and state security agents.

Kevin Stirr, the US Embassy’s democracy and governance officer, was asked by a security agent what the group had been doing. “Looking at people who have been beaten,” he said. The Central Intelligence Organisation agent replied: “We are going to beat you thoroughly, too”, before turning away and returning to his car. Mr Stirr pulled open the door and shouted at him.

The two agents in the vehicle tried to flee, but James McGee, the US Ambassador, stood in their path. When they tried to push him away with the car, he sat heavily on the bonnet. He went on to take photographs of the agents, who were trying to hide their faces.

Earlier, at Mvurwi hospital, another state security agent had tried to order Mr McGee to the station “to verify some information.”

The hospital gates were closed by three officers armed with automatic rifles. These instructions were also firmly rejected by Mr McGee. He then pulled the gate open to let the convoy drive through.

At Rhimbick sawmill near by, the ambassadors surprised a senior lone war veteran by entering the house commandeered as the “command centre” from where a mob of about a hundred youths has been dispatched to brutalise villagers almost nightly since April 28.

In a large empty room the diplomats found four well-thumbed exercise books filled with names, many of which had been designated as “war collaborators”.

The war veteran snatched away the books but only after a cameraman had filmed several pages.

“Clearly, questioning was done here,” Mr Pocock said.

Mr McGee said that the threats would not deter the ambassadorial mission. “We are eager to continue this type of thing, to show the world what is happening here in Zimbabwe. It is absolutely urgent that the entire world sees what is going on. The violence has to stop.”

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