Zimbabwe Detains Activists Trying to Depart Country

JOHANNESBURG, March 17 -- Three Zimbabwean opposition activists were arrested as they tried to leave the country Saturday, including two who were allegedly beaten by police and were heading to South Africa to seek medical treatment, a party official said.

The African Union, meanwhile, called on Zimbabwe to respect its citizens' human rights.

Arthur Mutambara, head of a faction of the Zimbabwean opposition group Movement for Democratic Change, was arrested at Harare International Airport as he was trying to leave for South Africa, said Roy Bennett, the movement's exiled treasurer general.

Also arrested in a separate incident were Grace Kwinje and Sekai Holland, who were attempting to go to South Africa for medical treatment, he said.

Tawanda Mutasah, director of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, said the two women, who were among the most severely injured when Zimbabwean police broke up a protest against President Robert Mugabe last Sunday, were trying to travel to Johannesburg to receive specialized post-traumatic care.

He said the ambulance carrying the women from a clinic in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, to the airport, where they were to leave in a medical aircraft, was stopped on the tarmac by officers from Zimbabwe's security forces.

The women's passports were taken, and they were told they needed a clearance certificate from the Department of Health. They were later allowed to return to the clinic under police guard.

Police used tear gas, water cannons and live ammunition to crush the March 11 political rally, and beat activists, including opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

The African Union issued a statement Saturday saying A.U. Commission chairman Alpha Oumar Konare "recalls the need for the scrupulous respect for human rights and democratic principles in Zimbabwe."