Zimbabwe police crush prayer rally, seize leaders
Pastor Dale Morgan
Zimbabwe police crush prayer rally, seize leaders*
By Cris Chinaka
Reuters
Sunday, March 11, 2007; 3:32 PM
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwean riot police arrested the country's top
opposition leader and shot a man dead on Sunday as they crushed a prayer
rally planned to protest against President Robert Mugabe.
Witnesses said police fought skirmishes with rock-throwing opposition
supporters in the Harare township of Highfield, where organizers had
tried to hold the rally to address Zimbabwe's deepening political and
economic crisis.
Police arrested Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan
Tsvangirai and other opposition officials after blocking their motor
convoy from driving to the rally site.
The party said Tsvangirai and the others were severely assaulted and
that one MDC activist had been shot dead.
"Morgan Tsvangirai, his aides, civic leaders and several senior MDC
officials have been arrested, detained without charge and severely
assaulted," MDC national organizing secretary Elias Mudzuri said in a
statement.
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said in a statement a police patrol
had killed a man after being attacked by a mob of "MDC thugs" at a
shopping mall in the area, and that three police officers had suffered
severe injuries.
"The police shot one male adult who appeared to be the leader of the
group in the chest. He died on the spot and the group dispersed," he
added, saying another group had burned a military truck and attacked a
police patrol while using children as human shields.
Bvudzijena said Tsvangirai, Arthur Mutambara, who leads another faction
of the MDC, and other MDC officials were detained because "they had been
observed going around inciting people to indulge in violent activities."
In a statement, the opposition Save Zimbabwe Campaign said lawyers were
being denied access to the detained and that police had arrested five
student activists at a workshop in Harare.
The group charged that riot squads had forced shops, bars and churches
to shut down for the day and assaulted patrons in beer halls.
"Highfield has been turned into a war zone," it said.
PRAYERS AND TEAR GAS
Riot police moved in force early on Sunday to head off the rally, saying
it would violate a ban on political protests imposed after opposition
supporters clashed with police in Highfield last month.
Organizers had argued the ban should not apply to a prayer vigil.
Witnesses said later in the day police had fired tear gas at youths who
were throwing stones at their patrols, taunting them and defying orders
not to move around in large numbers.
"There have been several skirmishes between the police and some youths,
people throwing stones, and the police firing tear gas," a Zimbabwean
journalist who lives in Highfield told a Reuters correspondent by phone.
Riot police mounted road blocks on major highways into the township, and
were searching vehicles for arms and questioning motorists.
Police on Saturday accused some elements in the MDC of hiring and arming
"thugs" to attack officers.
Authorities have tightened the screws on the opposition since violence
broke out last month when police broke up an MDC rally despite a court
order directing that it should be allowed.
State media said officials feared the rally was intended to launch
street protests against Mugabe's government.
Zimbabwe has seen political tensions build as it sinks deeper into its
worst economic crisis in decades, with inflation above 1,700 percent,
unemployment close to 80 percent and shortages of food, fuel and foreign
exchange.
Mugabe, 83, and in power since independence in 1980, dismisses the MDC
as a puppet of Zimbabwe's former colonial master Britain.