Zimbabwe police detain Tsvangirai
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwean police on Friday detainedopposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai for the second time thisweek after blocking him from reaching a campaign rally for theJune 27 presidential run-off vote, his MDC party said.
"(Party) president Tsvangirai and other MDC leaders weredetained again in Umzingwane. They are being taken to Esigodinipolice station," said Nelson Chamisa, spokesman for theMovement for Democratic Change.
Police were not immediately available for comment.
Tsvangirai was earlier stopped from reaching a rallyoutside Zimbabwe's second largest city, Bulawayo, after policeput up a roadblock. His MDC accuses President Robert Mugabe oftrying to sabotage his campaign.
"The police set up a roadblock on the way to How Mine,where Tsvangirai was heading as part of his campaign tour inMatabeleland," a Reuters photographer said.
The MDC said earlier that harassment of diplomats and aidgroups showed Mugabe's government would fail to respect therule of law during the June 27 presidential election run-off.
The accusation by Tendai Biti, secretary general of theMDC, came a day after police detained U.S. and Britishdiplomats outside Harare and relief agencies were barred fromdoing work in the country.
"It is almost as if the regime is sending out a message tothe region, to the international community that it doesn'tcare, that it has no respect for life, it has no respect forthe rule of law," Biti told the World Economic Forum for Africain Cape Town. "The regime is increasing the decibels ofinsanity."
Tsvangirai beat Mugabe in a March 29 election but failed towin the majority needed to avoid a second ballot, according toofficial results. Earlier this week he was held and questionedby police for eight hours.
STATE INTIMIDATION
On Thursday, police stopped and held five U.S. and twoBritish diplomats for several hours after they visited victimsof political violence, prompting strong condemnation from theU.S. and British governments.
Washington blamed the diplomats' detention firmly onMugabe's government, which the U.S. accuses of trying tointimidate Tsvangirai's supporters ahead of the election.
U.S. ambassador James McGee, who was among those detained,will lodge an official complaint in a meeting with Zimbabwe'sforeign ministry, the U.S. embassy in Harare said on Friday. Itwas not clear when the meeting would take place.
Zimbabwean police said the diplomats had triggered theincident by failing to identify themselves when they werestopped at Chipadze outside the capital.
Mugabe's government suspended the work of all internationalaid agencies in the southern African nation on Thursday.Britain and the European Union condemned the suspension.
"We utterly condemn the behaviour of the Zimbabwe regimeand the damage they are causing to the welfare of their ownpeople," said a spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
"I am deeply distressed to think that hundreds of thousandsof people who depend on aid from the European Commission andothers for their very survival now face an even more uncertainfuture," said EU aid commissioner Louis Michel, demanding theimmediate lifting of the ban.
Zimbabwe, once one of Africa's most prosperous countries,has seen food production plummet since 2000 when Mugabe'sgovernment began seizing thousands of white-owned farms as partof a land redistribution programme to help poor blacks.
Many of the farms have ended up in the hands of Mugabeloyalists, and the country now faces chronic food shortages. Ithas had to rely on handouts and imports to feed its people.
Zimbabwe has accused CARE International and othernon-governmental groups of political involvement, includingcampaigning for the MDC. CARE and others deny the charges.
The U.S. and British governments, along with human rightsgroups and Zimbabwe's opposition, have accused Mugabe of acampaign of violence to try to keep his 28-year hold on power.Tsvangirai says 65 people have been killed.
The opposition accused the government of waging genocide.
"What is happening in Zimbabwe is moving towards thedirection of full-scale genocide... Robert Mugabe and the stateof Zimbabwe are committing state-sponsored violence, murder andtorture to stay in power," Arthur Mutumbura, head of a smallerMDC faction, told the Cape Town forum.
Mugabe blames his opponents for the violence and sanctionsimposed by Western countries for the collapse of the onceprosperous economy. The opposition says he ruined Zimbabwethrough mismanagement.
The Southern African Development Community, a regionalgrouping of 14 nations, including Zimbabwe, is sendingobservers to monitor the run-off.
(Additional reporting by Wendell Roelf in Cape Town andKatherine Baldwin in London; Writing by Marius Bosch; Editingby Paul Simao and Mark Trevelyan)