By MacDonald Dzirutwe
HARARE (Reuters) - A leading Zimbabwean human rights campaigner and other activists charged with plotting to overthrow the government appeared in court Monday in a case that has deepened doubts over whether power-sharing is possible.
Jestina Mukoko, head of a local rights group, and eight other activists were charged last week with recruiting or trying to recruit Zimbabweans to undergo military training to topple President Robert Mugabe's government.
Opposition MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has threatened to suspend negotiations with Mugabe's ZANU-PF over their case.
The government has appealed to its highest court against a High Court ruling ordering the release of Mukoko and her co-accused. The High Court also ordered 23 other activists, mainly opposition supporters, to be freed from police custody because their detention was illegal.
The activists' lawyers said police were using delaying tactics to keep them in custody.
The activists appeared in court in green uniforms with their hands and feet shackled. They included a woman carrying her two-year-old child.
Seven other activists in the court Monday were charged with bombing police stations and two others faced lesser charges.
South Africa said Monday that the arrest of the activists should not delay the formation of a unity government, despite opposition threats to pull out of a power-sharing deal.
"We think the most important step is to form a unity government," South African presidential spokesman Thabo Masebe told Reuters. "There are many issues that need to be addressed by a unity government. This is one of them."
South Africa has the continent's biggest economy and is the current chair of the SADC, grouping the region's nations.
Masebe also said South Africa has reversed an earlier decision to hold back $30 million in agricultural aid to Zimbabwe until a unity government is formed.
He said the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe, made worse by a cholera epidemic that has killed over 1,500 people, had become too serious and farming and other supplies were badly needed.
SADC mediation has failed to push Zimbabwe's rival parties into implementing the power-sharing deal seen as the best chance to ease an economic crisis marked by hyperinflation and severe shortages of basic goods.
Tsvangirai won the first round of voting in March elections, but fell short of the majority needed to become president, triggering a run-off which Mugabe won after the MDC leader pulled out citing violent attacks on his supporters.
(Editing by Tim Pearce)
