America's ambassador to Zimbabwe has pioneered the role of diplomat as investigative journalist, keeping the focus on allegations that Robert Mugabe's government has launched a brutal campaign against dissent.

Over the weekend, the U.S. Embassy in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, released footage shot during one of the fact-finding tours James McGee has led in rural Zimbabwe to chronicle political violence.

The video, distributed internationally by The Associated Press and others, showed fearful men running from a small gang of militants _ a rare, graphic glimpse of the kind of terror Mugabe is accused of meting out.

With many foreign media outlets barred by the government and independent newspapers and broadcasters in Zimbabwe severely restricted, McGee's investigations and outspokenness have earned him sharp rebukes in the state-controlled Zimbabwean media. They've also led confrontations with Zimbabwean security forces.

Last month, while one of McGee's fact-finding convoys was stopped at a roadblock on the edge of Harare, a police officer threatened to beat one of McGee's senior aides. The officer got into his car and lurched toward McGee after he had demanded the officer's name. The car made contact with McGee's shins, but he was not injured. The convoy was eventually allowed to proceed.

"I'm not afraid of being kicked out," McGee, who has been in Zimbabwe less than a year, told reporters in a conference call from Harare on Tuesday. "We will continue to do our job."

He said other diplomats in Harare supported him. Japanese, British and other envoys have joined his convoys, and some have conducted their own McGee-style tours.

"Our actions have shown diplomats that maybe they should be out and about more than they have in the past," he said.

The United States has long been among Mugabe's sharpest critics. McGee's predecessor, Christopher Dell, also clashed with Zimbabwean officials.

Zimbabwean media have been critical of McGee from the start. The week after he began his assignment there, Caesar Zvayi, political editor of The Herald, a government mouthpiece, said McGee had criticized Zimbabwe's democratic and human rights record during the envoy's U.S. Senate confirmation hearings. Zvayi said McGee, as an appointee of President Bush, was likely "to turn out to be the house Negro." McGee is black.

The graying, soft-spoken McGee has refused to respond to such personal attacks, but not shied from denouncing government policy in Zimbabwe.

During Tuesday's conference call, McGee deployed some of the rhetoric that has led Zimbabwean officials to denounce him as undiplomatic. He came close to calling on Zimbabwe's neighbors to close their borders, noting the southern African country is landlocked.

"There's a lot of pressure that can be brought on Zimbabwe," he said. "There are so many things that could be brought to bear that could have a tremendous and immediate impact on the government of Zimbabwe."

McGee, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, can sound like a military strategist. In an AP interview last month, he also spoke like a soldier about leadership, saying Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai should show he was a "strong leader" and return to his homeland.

Tsvangirai had fled Zimbabwe, saying he was the target of a government assassination plot, soon after leading a field of four in the first round of presidential voting in March. He returned May 24 to campaign for the second round, only to have his attempts to reach voters repeatedly stymied by police and to see attacks on his supporters escalate.

On Sunday, Tsvangirai announced he was pulling out of the runoff, but Mugabe is planning to go ahead with the vote on Friday with Tsvangirai's name on the ballot.

McGee said Tuesday the vote should be called off, but that the international community had no way to force Mugabe to do so.

Born in Chicago in 1949, McGee grew up in Indiana. He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1968 to 1974, earning three Distinguished Flying Crosses during his Vietnam duty.

McGee has served in U.S. missions in Nigeria, the Netherlands, Pakistan, India and elsewhere. He was sworn in as ambassador to Zimbabwe late last year.