Zimbabwe police arrested opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Thursday while he was campaigning for the country’s June 27 presidential run-off election, his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said.
It is the third time in little more than a week that Tsvangirai has been detained by police.
The opposition and human rights groups accuse President Robert Mugabe’s government of waging a campaign of arrests and violent intimidation ahead of the run-off with Tsvangirai.
”Morgan Tsvangirai has been arrested by Zimbabwean police and is currently being held at Kwekwe police station. He and his entourage of 20 people were detained at a roadblock outside of Kwekwe while conducting a campaign tour through Midlands province,” the MDC said in a statement.
Police earlier on Thursday arrested the party’s secretary general at the Harare airport as he flew in from South Africa. Tendai Biti was bundled away without making contact with his lawyer, within minutes of touching down. He is apparently to be charged with treason and with making false statements.
”He was wanted in connection with the premature announcement of results before the official announcement of results by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission,” said police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena.
Tsvangirai beat Mugabe in the first round of elections in March but not by enough to avoid a run-off, according to official figures.
The MDC says Zanu-PF activists have killed 66 opposition supporters to try to intimidate voters before the run-off, and police have detained Tsvangirai twice over the past week while trying to campaign.
The ruling party blames the opposition for the political violence.
No right to force a regime change
Having expressed serious concerns about the violence in Zimbabwe during his speech in the National Assembly on Wednesday, President Thabo Mbeki returned to the subject when replying to the debate on his budget on Thursday.
He made it clear, however, that despite the urgings of opposition speakers in the debate he had no intention of trying to bring Mugabe’s government down.
”We will continue to insist that the people of Zimbabwe must have the possibility freely to choose their leaders and government and refuse to participate in projects based on the notion that we have a right to bring about regime change in Zimbabwe,” Mbeki said.
”It seems to me perfectly obvious that one of our principal tasks in this regard is to assist the people of Zimbabwe to find one another with regard to the resolution of the immense problems they face.”
He said that there are other countries who call South Africa a so-called rogue democracy, ”because we refuse to serve as their subservient klipgooiers [stone-throwers] against especially President Robert Mugabe”.
The president said that his government will continue to engage the Zimbabweans to convey views and feelings about any matter he believes is at variance with processes that must respect the will of the people.
”We will also continue to argue that the people of Zimbabwe will have to unite to extricate their country from the economic crisis in which it is immersed, and that we will contribute everything we can to support the realisation of this objective,” he said. – Reuters, I-Net Bridge