Tsvangirai detained in morning raid at Harvest House
By Violet Gonda
28March 2007

Still recovering from his brutal treatment by police while in detention three weeks ago, Morgan Tsvangirai was detained again on Wednesday morning. He was about to give a news conference on the recent abductions and beatings of party activists. The opposition leader was held together with at least 20 other officials and staff members at the MDC headquarters in Harare. Armed riot police sealed off Harvest House to prevent Tsvangirai from addressing a press conference and there is now confusion over his whereabouts. It was first believed that he had been released but his Secretary General Tendai Biti said he is not at his house or office.

The party’s Secretary for Foreign Affairs Elphas Mukonoweshuro said Tsvangirai was going to give a news conference on the abduction of party activists. Armed police with dogs cordoned off much of the central business district and shut down businesses. Mukonoweshuro said they sealed off all roads along Nelson Mandela Avenue, between Julius Nyerere Way and Second Street making access virtually impossible. It’s not known exactly how many people were arrested. Party documents and computers were confiscated. We can only conclude that this is a mission to gather political information for ZANU PF as to the MDC’s strategies and political position on various issues, said Mukonoweshuro.

The Mugabe regime continues to demonstrate its total disregard for human rights, legal procedure or international opinion at a time when SADC heads of state are meeting in Tanzania to find a peaceful solution to the Zimbabwe crisis.

The authorities accuse the opposition of unleashing an orgy of violence and petrol bombing police stations. But the MDC deny this saying their policy has always been to avoid violent confrontation with ZANU PF. The Secretary for Foreign Affairs Elphas Mukonoweshuro said: We believe this is a prelude to a calculated attempt to impose a state of emergency.

But he added that it is possible that some people may be reacting against the police attacks. Mukonoweshuro said: When police enter into the high density suburbs they embark on indiscriminate beatings across the political divide. They don’t even ask people whether they are ZANU PF or the MDC. They just beat people at random and obviously people react to these brutalities in different ways. So it is possible that if these events happened, they are not necessarily linked to the MDC because there are a lot of people in the high density areas who are very angry about what is going on.