Zimbabwe police arrest senior opposition official

Enlarge image

By MacDonald Dzirutwe

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe police arrested the opposition MDC’s secretary general as he arrived in the country on Thursday, in the latest move to crack down on the party ahead of a June 27 presidential run-off vote, party officials said.

MDC officials said Tendai Biti was detained as he stepped off a plane at Harare airport. Biti left the country soon after disputed March 29 elections to gather African support for the

MDC.

"About 10 men in plain clothes handcuffed him as he came out of the plane and took him downstairs and drove him away," MDC information director Luke Tamborinyika told Reuters.

The MDC and human rights groups have accused President Robert Mugabe’s government of waging a violent intimidation campaign ahead of the run-off against MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

The MDC says ZANU-PF activists have killed 66 opposition supporters to try to intimidate voters before the run-off, and police have detained Tsvangirai twice over the past week while trying to campaign.

The ruling party blames the opposition for the political violence.

Tsvangirai beat Mugabe in the first round of elections in March but not by enough to avoid a run-off, according to official figures.

Mugabe’s support has been eroded by the economic collapse of the once prosperous country, which .....continued below

Advertisement starts

Advertisement ends

Tsvangirai says Zimbabweans cannot afford Mugabe’s rule any further.

Mugabe has conceded that beneficiaries of his farm seizures are using less than half the land and threatened to take it off them.

Critics say the veteran leader has used the land reforms to help sustain his rule, rewarding supporters with fertile farms seized from whites -- although many are ill-equipped to properly engage in agriculture.

The official Herald newspaper quoted Mugabe as saying only 42 percent of the land was under full use and renewing threats to re-possess farms that were not being properly used in a country suffering food shortages and economic collapse.

(Additional reporting by Cris Chinaka; Editing by Matthew Tostevin)