Harare, Zimbabwe – Police stormed the main opposition party headquarters Wednesday and arrested its leader shortly before President Robert Mugabe left for an emergency meeting of southern African leaders about the crisis in Zimbabwe.
Morgan Tsvangirai and other Mugabe opponents were taken into custody hours before the opposition leader planned to talk to reporters about a wave of political violence that included an incident that left him briefly hospitalized.
Police sealed off approaches to the Movement for Democratic Change headquarters and fired tear gas to drive away onlookers before taking Tsvangirai and the others away in a bus, said Eliphas Mukonoweshuro, an aide to Tsvangirai.
“We don’t know their whereabouts,” he said. “We don’t know if they have been charged.”
State radio said Mugabe left for Tanzania to attend a meeting of the Southern African Development Community on the political turmoil in Zimbabwe amid concerns the crisis could threaten regional stability.
Before leaving, Mugabe held a meeting of his politburo, the ruling party’s highest policy- making body, to discuss whether to hold national elections in 2008 or 2010. Ruling-party spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira said Mugabe, who has pushed for a delay until 2010 that would lengthen his rule, expressed willingness to contest the elections if nominated.
The radio report said the party would go ahead with elections regardless of whether the opposition takes part. On Tuesday, Tsvangirai said he would boycott a presidential election scheduled for next year unless it was carried out under a new democratic constitution that ensures it is free and fair.
Mugabe is under growing pressure to step down as leader of the country he has ruled since independence in 1980. Tensions are said to be rising in his party over his succession, and the opposition blames him for the country’s corruption and acute shortages of food, hard currency and gasoline.
But the 83-year-old leader has denied that his rule is nearing an end and has vowed to crush opposition to him and his government.
Tsvangirai, 54, was arrested along with about 50 other people March 11 as opposition, church, student and civic groups tried to stage a prayer meeting. His supporters said police smashed his head against a wall repeatedly.
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, which is linked to the opposition, has called for a national protest strike in early April.
