On Thursday he provoked high political drama at the Harare International Airport after he flew to Zimbabwe from self-imposed exile in South Africa only to be immediately arrested by Mugabe’s goons.
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The defiant act by Biti, who had spent two months in exile following threats by the police commissioner-general Augustine Chihuri that he was on the police wanted list, was met with force by Mugabe’s security details and was detained without access to his lawyers or his family until Saturday afternoon. A High Court injunction forced the police to bring him to court, where he was immediately put on remand. Biti shuffled into the courtroom, bent almost double in leg irons and handcuffs. His face looked haunted. His lawyer later told the press that Biti had been held at a secret location since arriving in the country, and interrogated continuously for 24 hours by three police teams, depriving him of sleep.
Biti, accused by the Mugabe government of treason for “prematurely” announcing presidential election results declaring a loss for Mugabe after the March 29 elections, was arrested right at the plane’s exit door soon after he had landed at the Harare International Airport at 12:15 pm (Zim Time) hoping to join the campaign for MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai in a crucial presidential election run off scheduled for June 27.
A savvy leader who doesn’t pull his punches, Biti, together with MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, has become an international symbol of resistance to Mugabe’s repressive rule. They have launched a massive diplomatic offensive that has piled pressure on the Muigabe regime.
A young and clever leader who also charms the press with powerful quotes, Biti symbolizes a futuristic leader who has remained steadfast in his open criticism of state-sponsored violence, election rigging, and laws intended to disenfranchise supporters of the MDC ahead of the historic March 29 presidential elections.
He is the architect of the electoral system allowing results to be posted outside polling stations soon after vote counting. He was the MDC’s chief envoy to inter-party talks with Zanu (PF), held under the facilitation of South African President Thabo Mbeki. The electoral system crafted at the SADC-brokered talks largely managed to avert vote rigging on March 29, enabling the MDC to run a parallel voter tabulation that had a marginal discrepancy with the final results announced by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, five weeks later.
Biti, elected to the post of secretary general in a high-stakes MDC Congress held at the City Sports Centre in Harare in March 2006, is a witty lawyer who delivers moving campaign messages, replete with detail. He has an obsession with detail, financial detail.
The attempt by agents of Mugabe’s reviled Central Intelligence Organisation to silence him by taking him into custody and concocting treason charges based on forged documents clearly show that Zanu (PF) sees Biti as a danger to Mugabe’s June 27 presidential election challenge.
Biti was treated like scum at the airport, handcuffed at the back like a common criminal as he stepped off the plane and quickly spirited him away by ten plain clothes officers. They sped off in a white Mercedes Benz, only to have his arrest announced on State radio, with emphasis that he faces the death penalty.
Born August 6, 1966, Biti attended Goromonzi High School and the local University of Zimbabwe, where he graduated from the Law School.
At the University of Zimbabwe he was a student leader and led the famous 1987 and 1988 anti-government and anti- corruption protests that formed the basis and nucleus of the present day student movement. Biti, a founding MDC member, was first elected Member of Parliament for Harare East in 2000 and was re-elected in 2005.
He has been arrested and tortured by the police and notorious state agents on numerous occasions. Most recently in March 2007 he was arrested and brutally tortured alongside MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai,
The reception that awaited Biti in Harare on Thursday was kept uncertain until the last moment. Security forces had thrown a cordon around the airport lounge so none of MDC supporters who had gathered to welcome him could approach.
Biti’s arrest sidelines a powerful political enemy of the beleaguered 84-year-old dictator, but it is likely to deepen Mugabe’s growing unpopularity and reinforce public perceptions that he is an authoritarian ruler ahead of a key presidential election run off that analyst say he could lose again.
Post published in: Football