Authorities arrested Zimbabwe’s opposition leader on Monday and fired tear gas on student protesters, vowing to crush the launch of anti-government demonstrations the opposition hopes will mark the most significant challenge yet to President Robert Mugabe’s decades long rule.
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change was arrested at his home on Monday, charged with contempt of court for planning an illegal demonstration, said Innocent Chagonda, his lawyer. He has since been released.
Police had come several hours before, around midnight, but left when they found Tsvangirai was not at home.
Tsvangirai, a former trade union leader, has become increasingly defiant in his calls for the people of Zimbabwe to rise up against Mugabe and his policies which the opposition blames for sinking the country into economic and political disarray.
This week has been called as a week of strikes and protest against the government.
Riot police fired tear gas at hundreds of students at Zimbabwe University as they tried to march from campus to downtown Harare.
The students were driven back by the clouds of tear gas. Tear gas was also fired on a group that gathered on the street in the Harare township of Budiriro.
In another Harare township called Mabvuku army trucks packed with soldiers patrolled overnight. Riot police in helmets and bearing clubs stood watch in downtown Harare.
Tsvangirai appeared in court on Monday where he is standing trial for treason. The state says he was part of a plot to assassinate Mugabe, charges he and his fellow accused — two senior opposition officials — deny.
”I’m in no position to comment,” Tsvangirai told reporters of his arrest as he was hurried into court by two plainclothes detectives.
One of his fellow accused, party secretary-general Welshman Ncube said police had also tried to arrest him overnight. He was not at home, but police assaulted his staff, he said.
”They beat my workers, there are broken bones,” he said.
Of the launch of this week’s actions against the government, he said, ”it is tough and it is very tense.”
As part of their crackdown against demonstrations, police-manned roadblocks were set up along all the main roads leading into the capital, Harare and military helicopters swooped over the western city of Bulawayo. Both cities are considered opposition strongholds.
In Bulawayo, two lawmakers were arrested, also accused of planning an illegal demonstration, opposition officials said.
Over the weekend the High Court declared the demonstrations illegal, but the opposition planned on filing an appeal against the ruling at the Supreme Court on Monday.
In Harare it appeared the strike was taking hold, with most shops, banks, and factories closed. Traffic was light, and only few commuter busses were running.
Opposition officials said they were planning for street demonstrations later in the day.
State television, in its nightly news on Sunday, said planned demonstrations and strikes would be ”met with the full wrath of the law.”
It said ruling party youths loyal to the government would break up opposition street demonstrations and quoted Defence Minister Sidney Sekeramayi as saying ”enough measures” were being taken to stop anti-government unrest.
”Our soil is very sacrosanct. We shall not allow it to be recolonized,” Sekeramayi told the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation.
The government has repeatedly accused Britain, the former colonial ruler, of funding the Movement for Democratic Change and opposition-backed labor unions to mount a campaign to oust Mugabe.
The television station showed footage of troops and riot police being deployed in Harare and file footage of tear gas being fired on demonstrators in previous protests.
Government vehicles sped through Harare late on Sunday throwing out printed fliers urging Zimbabweans to ignore opposition calls for the protests, saying: ”No to mass action. No to British puppets. – Sapa-AP