Zimbabwe opposition leader suffers new police beating

By Deutsche Presse-Agentur Mar 19, 2007, 3:03 GMT

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. Zimbabwe\'s capital Harare saw new clashes between police and opposition activists after a spokesman for the Movement of Democratic Change (MDC) was again badly beaten when he tried to leave the country earlier Sunday from Harare Airport EPA/PHILLIMON BULAWAYO

Zimbabwe's capital Harare saw new clashes between police and opposition activists after a spokesman for the Movement of Democratic Change (MDC) was again badly beaten when he tried to leave the country earlier Sunday from Harare Airport.

Nelson Chamisa probably lost an eye in the beating by officials, South African broadcaster SABC reported, and he is also believed to have suffered a cracked skull after he was attacked with iron bars.

The attack on Chamisa prompted a new standoff between police and supporters of the movement led by Morgan Tsvangiarai.

Sunday's incidents brought swift reaction from the United States.

US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that Washington 'condemns the government of Zimbabwe's continued attacks on the political opposition, including additional arrests, beatings and refusal to allow travel for necessary medical treatment.'

He said that the government of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe 'must refrain from attacks' against an opposition memorial procession planned for Monday to honour an activist slain at a March 11 rally.

Chamisa was assaulted by four suspected members of the Central Intelligence Organization as he prepared to check in for a flight to Brussels, where he was due to attend a joint parliamentary session by the European Union and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) nations, said Eliphas Mukonoweshuro.

Chamisa was part of a Zimbabwean delegation that included ruling- party lawmakers who were allowed to board the flight.

Mukonoweshuro called on the EU to cancel the visas of the ruling- party delegates.

'This is a criminal state. We expect the EU to take stern measures to show that actions of this sort are not acceptable to the civilized world,' he said.

Chamisa was one of several dozen opposition activists arrested and assaulted alongside Tsvangirai on March 11 as they tried to attend a prayer rally declared illegal by police.

The police brutality against the detained activists prompted widespread international condemnation.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has accused the opposition party of perpetrating terrorist attacks on innocent civilians in a bid to oust his government, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Mugabe, 83, has defiantly rejected a torrent of international condemnation following the beating of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and a number of his colleagues last week.

He says the opposition Movement for Democratic Change is a violent party sponsored by former colonial power Britain and other Western allies.

Speaking at a ceremony to mark International Women's Day Saturday in Harare, Mugabe said that authorities would brook no more lawless behaviour from the MDC.

'We have given too much room to mischief-makers and shameless stooges of the West,' Mugabe was quoted as saying in the Sunday Mail.

'Scores of innocent people going about their legitimate business have fallen prey to terrorist attacks that are part of the desperate and illegal plot to unconstitutionally change the government of the country.'

He was addressing government ministers, legislators, religious groups and non-governmental organizations at a belated ceremony to mark International Women's Day under the theme: Ending Impunity for Violence Against Women.

As he spoke, two badly beaten female members of the MDC were denied permission to leave the country to seek medical treatment in neighbouring South Africa, the opposition said.

Authorities at Harare International Airport said that Grace Kwinjeh and Sekai Holland needed letters of clearance from the Health Ministry before being allowed to take a medical air-rescue flight to South Africa.

'President Mugabe clearly fears a free and open political debate in his country and is therefore willing to use violence to suppress all those who oppose him,' McCormack said Sunday in the statement from Washington. 'Ultimately, he will be held accountable by the people of Zimbabwe and by the world.'

Meanwhile, another opposition leader was still in police custody Sunday following his arrest at Harare International Airport, his party said.

Arthur Mutambara, who leads a breakaway faction of Tsvangirai's MDC, was arrested Saturday as he tried to travel to neighbouring South Africa to visit his wife. He was being held at Harare Central Police Station.

Mutambara was one of dozens of opposition officials and civic- rights activists rounded up by police during the March 11 rally in Harare's Highfield suburb.

Many of those detained - including MDC founding president Tsvangirai - were badly beaten in custody, provoking an international outcry. A High Court ordered their release earlier this week.

Defence lawyer Beatrice Mutambara said that Mutambara's arrest and detention Saturday was a contemptuous, arrogant and malicious defiance of the High Court order.

'We are therefore proceeding to apply on an urgent basis for the release of our client from the unlawful detention,' she said in a letter to the officer commanding law and order at Harare Central Police Station, a copy of which was seen by Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Mutambara's MDC faction said in a statement late Saturday that police wanted to charge their leader with inciting public violence.