Zimbabwe police arrested the opposition mayor of Harare, Elias Mudzuri, for the second time in two days on Tuesday on unspecified charges, he said.
On Monday Mudzuri, who has been suspended by the government for alleged misconduct, was arrested when he returned to his office after several weeks’ leave. He was later released without charge.
”They want to lock me up. Maybe they’ll come up with a charge,” Mudzuri said via mobile phone from a police station in Harare.
Mudzuri denies the charges that led to his suspension, and has appealed against it in the courts.
His party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) accuses Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo of using his ”political muscle” to hamper Mudzuri’s work as the first opposition mayor of the capital.
Mudzuri said on Tuesday his lawyer was with him at the police station trying to secure his release.
In January Mudzuri was arrested along with 21 councillors, municipal workers and residents for holding a meeting in a Harare suburb without police permission, as required under a strict security law.
Earlier today, Zimbabwe riot police broke up an opposition demonstration in the capital Harare as a petition to US President George Bush was due to be handed over to the US embassy.
Around 30 supporters of the MDC carrying placards reading ”Mugabe step down” and ”We want a transitional government now” ran chanting through the streets of central Harare.
But they scattered when riot police, wearing helmets and carrying truncheons, arrived swiftly on the scene.
Meanwhile an MDC official said another group of opposition supporters was due to hand over a petition to Bush via the US embassy in Harare.
Bush is travelling to neighbouring South Africa on Tuesday as part of a five-nation African tour that began late Monday. The US embassy in Harare could not immediately confirm whether it had received the petition, which labels South African President Thabo Mbeki an ”imperialist” who wants to see Zimbabwe perpetually weak so as not to pose a threat to his own country.
”President Mbeki has indeed lost the moral authority to mediate in the Zimbabwean crisis,” read part of the petition. ”Zimbabwe cannot continue to suffer because of President Mbeki’s imperialist ambitions.”
The MDC rejected Mugabe’s victory in presidential polls last year, in which he beat MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai by 400 000 votes.
The opposition and international observers said the election was rigged and marred by violence and intimidation.
Last week Bush said he wanted Mbeki to put pressure on Mugabe to hold fresh elections in Zimbabwe.
Mbeki’s policy toward Zimbabwe has been one of behind-the-scenes efforts to reconcile the government and the opposition.
Tuesday’s petition signed by ”MDC supporters”, called on the US president to impress on his South African counterpart the need to ”advise Mugabe to see sense and retire now.”
”We need a transitional government within the next three months leading to free and fair elections under international supervision,” it added.
Police spokesperson Oliver Mandipaka said he could not confirm whether anyone was arrested in connection with Tuesday’s street protest.
An AFP reporter saw some civilians on the back of a police Land Rover near a central Harare park where a policeman was picking up discarded placards.
Meanwhile the Democratic Alliance criticised the African Union (AU) as hypocritical to expect the United States to solve the crisis in Liberia while ignoring US concerns about Zimbabwe, Democratic Alliance (DA) acting leader Joe Seremane said on Tuesday.
”The Liberian civil war should certainly feature high up on the agenda of this week’s AU summit in Mozambique, but it is a travesty that the political and economic meltdown in Zimbabwe is completely absent from that agenda,” he said in a statement.
While the crisis in Zimbabwe was no more important than the conflict in Liberia, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or any other trouble spot on the continent, it had one of the highest international profiles.
”Consequently, it has considerable potential to deter foreign direct investment in the region and to impact on the success of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad).
”Solving the crisis in Zimbabwe is a sure way to kick-start Nepad,” he said.
The effectiveness of the AU and the success of Nepad would not be tested by the simple cases where consensus was easily reached — such as the civil war in Liberia, or the military coup in the Central African Republic.
”They will be tested by the tough cases where the erosion of democracy is more insidious, and the abuse of human rights is perpetrated by past liberation struggle brothers-in-arms. Zimbabwe is just such a case,” Seremane said.
It was a poor rationalisation to say that the issue of Zimbabwe was too divisive to be addressed by the AU.
If it had the potential to be divisive, that was all the more reason to have it on the agenda.
”Those AU members that would like to deal with Zimbabwe at the summit should lobby other members to come round to their point of view.
”As the outgoing chairperson of the AU and leader of the Southern African Development Community region’s biggest economy, President Thabo Mbeki should lead this campaign,” Seremane said. – Sapa , Sapa-AFP