Zimbabwe Police Arrest Opposition's Top Leaders
Police loyal to President Robert Mugabe detained the opposition party's top two leaders Thursday, two weeks ahead of Zimbabwe's presidential runoff, in what is the regime's most blatant attack against its rivals since the March election.
Opposition presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai, who had won more votes than Mugabe in the March 29 presidential election, was stopped twice by police while campaigning in the south for the June 27 runoff, his party said, according to The Associated Press.
In the first arrest, he was held in a police station for two hours then let go. But then he was again stopped by a group of police, and it is not known where he was held Thursday night.
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Meanwhile, the No. 2 opposition leader, Tendai Biti, secretary-general of the Movement for Democratic Change, was not only arrested but police say he would be charged with treason, which could be punished by death.
Biti, an outspoken critic of the Mugabe regime, was arrested at Harare airport as he returned from South Africa. Police said Biti's treason charge is due to a "transition document" regarding changes to Zimbabwe's government once the MDC comes to power.
U.S. Ambassador James McGee said the Bush administration was "very, very concerned" about Biti's arrest, according to AP.
McGee said he has seen the "transition document," but said it was a routine plan that any political party would draw up to lay out priorities if it were to come to power. The document being circulated is a forged version, he said, that raises issues not contained in the genuine document, including punishing Mugabe loyalists.
"It was just a bunch of foolishness," McGee told AP.
In addition to the arrests, the United States is also angered that 20 tons of American food aid meant for hungry Zimbabwe children was seized by officials last week and given to Mugabe supporters at a rally.
"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," State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said in Washington.
On Monday, police also raided Zimbabwe Christian Alliance offices and arrested five staff members for interrogation. The church group had helped mobilize Christians to vote in the March 29 election in spite of Mugabe's intimidation tactics meant to keep supporters of his rivals at home.
"This is pure harassment of church organizations," Useni Sibanda, national coordinator for ZCA, declared in a statement. "We are just doing our usual work and we don't understand why we should be attacked by riot police like this."
Mugabe has become increasingly unpopular for crushing all critics and for Zimbabwe's nightmare economic crisis. The 84-year-old leader has held onto power for nearly three decades during which he led a once abundant and prosperous country to one where the unemployment rate is about 80 percent and inflation is more than 100,000 percent.
Officials of the Southern African Development Community said it plans to deploy a total of 400 observers – three times as much as in March – to monitor the June runoff.
But U.S. McGee called for "three to four times that. Then I think we would have an opportunity" for free and fair elections.
