By Cris Chinaka
HARARE (Reuters) - President Robert Mugabe vowed onSaturday that the opposition Movement for Democratic Changewould never rule Zimbabwe and that he was prepared to fight.
"We shall never, never accept anything that smells of ...the MDC. These pathetic puppets taking over this country? Let'ssee. That is not going to happen," he said.
"We are prepared to fight for it if we lose it in the sameway that our forefathers lost it (to British colonial rule)."
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai will face Mugabe in a run-offpresidential election on June 27, after winning the first roundin March but without the necessary majority.
Tsvangirai and 11 campaign colleagues were held by policefor three hours after being taken into custody at a roadblockin the morning. He has been detained several times this week.
The party's secretary-general Tendai Biti, arrested onThursday as he returned to the country, appeared before a judgeon Saturday.
At the closed hearing prosecutors said they planned tocharge him with "treason and making malicious statementsdetrimental to the interests of the state", which could carry adeath penalty, Biti's lawyer said.
Police took Biti away after the hearing and said they mightbring him back to court on Monday, the lawyer told reporters.
Mugabe's ZANU-PF lost control of parliament in electionsalso held in March but the president, who has ruled sinceindependence from Britain in 1980, has shown little sign ofaccepting change.
"It is clearly impossible to talk about a free and fairelection in Zimbabwe," the MDC said in a statement after theirleader was detained.
"To suggest otherwise is to be clearly blind to the graveharassment, intimidation and violence that the people ofZimbabwe have had to endure over the past few years."
Tsvangirai, rights groups and Western powers accuse Mugabeof unleashing a brutal campaign, including using police toharass opponents, to win the run-off.
WAR RHETORIC
The MDC claims 66 of its followers have been killed inattacks since the March polls.
Mugabe, 84, blames the MDC for the violence that has causedwidespread international concern.
His language has grown increasingly belligerent as therun-off approaches. He said again on Saturday that Westerncountries were interfering in politics by sponsoring the MDC.
"We have become the focus of the British and the Americans.The U.S. has provided $70 million (36 million pounds) to theMDC for regime change ... and British Prime Minister GordonBrown is interfering in our internal affairs."
"Never again shall this country come under the rule of thewhite man, direct or indirect. Not while we, who fought for itsliberation, live," he said to wild cheers from thousands ofsupporters, including soldiers.
The former guerrilla commander told ZANU-PF youth membersin Harare a day earlier that liberation war veterans had toldhim they would launch a new bush war if he lost the run-off.
"They said if this country goes back into white hands justbecause we have used a pen (to vote), 'we will return to thebush to fight'," Mugabe said.
War veterans have regularly been used to intimidateMugabe's opponents and were involved in implementing thegovernment's seizure of thousands of white-owned farmsbeginning in 2000.
Mugabe's wife Grace told a campaign rally the party shouldnot accept a government of national unity with the MDC.
Zimbabwe's agricultural sector, once one of the mostprosperous in Africa, has collapsed, and shortages of bread,milk and meat are common. Inflation is running at 165,000percent and unemployment is 80 percent.
U.N. humanitarian officials say the situation is rapidlyworsening, with up to four million people in need of aid.
(Additional reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe, edited byRichard Meares)
