Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, June 13, 2008

HARARE, Zimbabwe, June 12 -- The Zimbabwean government's crackdown on political opponents took an ominous turn Thursday with the arrest of the opposition party's No. 2 official, who was charged with treason and could face the death penalty.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was also arrested Thursday, in a pattern of harassment two weeks before he is to face President Robert Mugabe in a presidential runoff election. Tsvangirai has been arrested four times in recent days, but has not been charged in any of the incidents.

Tsvangirai was detained Thursday in the town of Kwekwe, where he had gone to campaign, and hours later in the city of Gweru.

Mugabe is facing the strongest electoral challenge to his 28-year rule as once-prosperous Zimbabwe slides deeper into economic decline. Since the first round of voting March 29, ruling party activists have rampaged across the countryside in what human rights activists call the worst political violence and intimidation in two decades.

The opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, says 66 of its members have been killed by suspected ruling party militias since the vote, as the government steps up arrests of MDC members and supporters.

The opposition party's secretary general, Tendai Biti, was arrested at the Harare airport on his arrival from South Africa, where he had spent the past two months because of safety concerns.

Biti was charged with treason and issuing "public false statements prejudicial to the state," the government said. The treason charge carries the possibility of the death penalty.

"He was arrested by 10 men at the airport before his passport could be stamped," opposition spokesman Nelson Chamisa said. "At the moment, we don't know where he has been taken to. We are worried."

Biti's legal representatives appealed to a court to force police to disclose his whereabouts, the opposition said.

Zimbabwe's chief police spokesman, Wayne Bvudzijena, confirmed Biti's arrest.

"The treason charges arise from a document he authored, 'The Transition Strategy,' while the other charge is about his inflammatory statements he made after the March 29 harmonized elections," Bvudzijena said.

Authorities allege that in the document, Biti calls on Britain and the United States to topple Mugabe's government. The opposition denies Biti wrote any such document.

Bvudzijena denied that Tsvangirai had been arrested, saying that he had been stopped at a roadblock and asked to accompany the police to their station for his safety.

Tsvangirai said at a news conference Wednesday that he was confident of winning the election despite the challenges.

"The people of Zimbabwe made a resolve on March 29 that they would vote out Robert Mugabe," he said. "After that resolve, another election was called for June 27, and the incumbent has embarked on a retributive exercise where he attacks those same people who voted for me on that day."

Meanwhile, U.S. officials said Thursday that Zimbabwean authorities had seized a truckload of food aid meant for schoolchildren and distributed it to Mugabe supporters at a political rally.

The U.S. Agency for International Development, which contracted the truck, said in a statement that a group of military and police officers, as well as war veterans, threatened the driver, who fled to a nearby police station for protection.

"This unconscionable behavior must stop," said USAID administrator Henrietta H. Fore. "It is unacceptable for the government of Zimbabwe to steal food from hungry children."

State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said he did not know when the embassy first reported the June 6 incident or when it was made public.

Last week, Zimbabwe's government banned aid organizations from distributing food in the country, with Mugabe accusing the groups of inciting rural voters to bring down his government. About 4 million Zimbabweans, a third of the population, are dependent on food aid.

"We call on the government, the Zimbabwean authorities, to immediately reinstate permission for all aid agencies to resume their life-saving assistance," Gallegos said. "Failure to do so constitutes the government of Zimbabwean complicity in the assault, suffering and deaths of innocent citizens."