Police arrested opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader
Morgan Tsvangirai while he was campaigning – and again late last night
in Gweru.
He has been arrested four times in a week.
Party secretary-general Tendai Biti was detained on arrival from SA, and
police raided the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association offices in a bid to
pick up its activists.
Tsvangirai was released after the initial arrest. Police spokesman Wayne
Bvudzijena said Biti was being charged with treason and communicating
falsehoods prejudicial to the state.
Tsvangirai has been charged with at least five treason cases.
Senior MDC officials were making frantic efforts to contact President
Thabo Mbeki yesterday to secure Biti’s release. Mbeki helped last week
to secure Tsvangirai’s release from police detention.
Bvudzijena said Tsvangirai was taken in by the police in Kwekwe for
protective detention since he recently said he feared assassination.
The house of MDC MP Takalani Matibe was attacked in Chegutu , and the
home of Blessing Chebundo – also an MDC MP – was torched in rural
Hurungwe by suspected state agents.
The escalation of repression – and Biti’s arrest – came barely 24 hours
after Mugabe’s Zanu (PF) negotiators had agreed at talks with the MDC in
Pretoria that the crackdown would stop.
The negotiators had told South African mediators and MDC representatives
that Biti would be allowed to return home safely after nearly two months
in SA.
Police recently said they wanted to arrest Biti for allegedly
unofficially releasing presidential election results in March. It turned
out yesterday that he was also wanted for treason.
He allegedly wrote a document titled The Transition Strategy which urged
“regime change” in Zimbabwe.
The document allegedly revealed that the MDC wanted British Prime
Minister Gordon Brown to intervene militarily in Zimbabwe. The
government claims that Brown wrote to Tsvangirai promising military
intervention.
The British embassy in Harare said the claim of a letter from Brown to
Tsvangirai was “a clumsy fabrication”.
The MDC said the document was so poorly drafted and so unintelligible it
could not have emanated from them.
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa described Tsvangirai’s behaviour as
“treasonous” on the basis of the alleged memorandum, which the British
said was a forgery.
Despite these allegations Biti – who went around Africa campaigning
against Mugabe after the March polls – decided to return home after Zanu
(PF) agreed that he could do so safely.
Zanu (PF) and MDC representatives met on Tuesday and Wednesday in
Pretoria to discuss the runoff and violence. This was a follow-up to a
meeting they had on May 30-31.
Biti’s arrest threw the talks into disarray and left Mbeki with a
mountain to climb in his mediation efforts.
The MDC said arresting Tsvangirai was part of Mugabe’s strategy to block
him from campaigning and break his spirit.
Political violence in Zimbabwe has claimed at least 66 lives, mainly of
MDC activists, sine March 29.
SA yesterday deployed its observers around the country after thy were
briefed about the escalating violence.
Southern African Development Community (SADC) observers said monitoring
the runoff would be a serious challenge. Monitors from western countries
critical of Mugabe have been barred.
“It is a mammoth task,” SADC official Tanki Mothae said before the
deployment of 120 observers out of 400.
Mothae said the SADC wanted to help Zimbabwe run a free and fair poll.
“This is to help the people of Zimbabwe go through this election as
peacefully as possible.”
But Mothae claimed that observers had not yet received any reports of
violence, despite daily incidents of brutality.
Post published in: News