Mugabe police seize opposition leaders

President Robert Mugabe’s regime struck at his rivals only two weeks before Zimbabwe’s presidential run-off, twice detaining his challenger and jailing the number two opposition leader to face treason charges.

The US ambassador, meanwhile, said 20 tons of American food aid heading to impoverished Zimbabwean children had been seized by authorities last week and given to Mugabe supporters at a rally.

The repeated detentions, coupled with Western accusations that Mugabe’s regime is using food as a weapon, dramatically demonstrate the obstacles to the campaign thrown up by the long-time leader.

“This is a government that is taking tremendous and, frankly, awful strides to maintain its power, that is increasingly abusing its own citizens and has raised, or should I say lowered, the bar to a level that we rarely see,” US State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said in Washington yesterday.

White House press secretary Dana Perino, travelling in Europe with President George Bush, said the United Nations Security Council should quickly take up the Zimbabwe crisis “to prevent further deterioration of the region’s humanitarian and security situation”.

Morgan Tsvangirai, who led the opening round of presidential voting two and a half months ago and faces the increasingly autocratic Mugabe in a June 27 run-off, was first stopped at a roadblock in the south and held at a police station for about two hours, his party said.

The party said Mr Tsvangirai went back to campaigning, but was stopped later by another group of police, and it was not known if he was still being held last night.

It was the third and fourth times in recent weeks that he was detained while running against Mugabe, who is increasingly unpopular for repressive ways and a wrecked economy.

However, the biggest blow was aimed at Tendai Biti, secretary general of Mr Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change, who was arrested at Harare airport upon returning from South Africa. Police said he would be charged with treason, which carries the possibility of the death penalty.

Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said the treason charge related to a “transition document” discussing changing Zimbabwe’s government.

He said Mr Biti also would charged with making false statements “prejudicial to the state”. That charge refers to accusations that Mr Biti announced election results before the official count was released. Under Zimbabwean law, only the electoral commission can announce results.

Mr Bvudzijena said Mr Biti was in police custody but would not say where. He said Mr Biti would be charged “as soon as we are through with our investigation”, but would not be more specific.

Mr Biti’s detention robs the opposition of one of its most impassioned spokesmen. He has led on-and-off talks with Mugabe’s party, and his arrest may signal Mugabe’s final rejection of the possibility of negotiating Zimbabwe out of its political and economic crisis.

In a statement, Mr Tsvangirai’s party called on police “to immediately reveal Mr Biti’s location and release him unharmed immediately”.

The party said it was “extremely concerned about the welfare of the secretary general given the flagrant disregard for the rule of law and ongoing, state-sanctioned political violence and abductions currently prevalent in Zimbabwe”.

Mr Tsvangirai, Mr Biti and other opposition leaders had left Zimbabwe soon after the first presidential ballot on March 29 amid concerns about their security. Mr Tsvangirai returned on May 24 to begin campaigning for the run-off.

US ambassador James McGee said the Bush administration was “very, very concerned” about Mr Biti’s arrest.

Mr McGee said he had seen the opposition party’s “transition document”, describing it as a routine plan that any political party would draw up to identify priorities if it were to come to power.

However, he said a forged version had been circulating that raised issues not contained in the genuine document, including calls for punishing Mugabe hardliners.

Mr McGee said he had little confidence that the run-off would be free and fair, but added: “I don’t think we have any choice but to move forward with an election,” saying that to do otherwise would be to hand victory to Mugabe.

Mugabe, in power since the country gained independence from Britain in 1980, was lauded early in his rule for campaigning for racial reconciliation and building the economy. But in recent years, he has been accused of holding on to power through fraud and intimidation and trampling on people’s rights.

He also is accused of overseeing an economic slide blamed on the collapse of the key agriculture sector after often violence seizures of farmland from whites.

Mugabe claimed he ordered the seizures, begun in 2002, to benefit poor blacks. But many of the farms went to his loyalists.