Opposition leader freed after short detention

Opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai was detained in a dawn raid and released without charge on Friday as the ruling ZANU-PF opened its annual conference, to prepare for presidential elections in March.

Tsvangirai's arrest came a day after President Robert Mugabe, speaking ahead of the conference in Victoria Falls, said that the MDC was a "real terrorist threat" to the country.

Basking in the support of a Southern African Development Community (SADC) task team, which this week endorsed Harare's land reforms and rejected calls for sanctions against senior ruling party officials, Mugabe said those in favour of sanctions were "bound to fail because there is solid support for our land programme in the region". He urged preparation for a "physical fight" and called on youth to defend Zimbabwe's independence.

According to political analysts, Tsvangirai - accused by Mugabe of "being used by whites" and of colluding with Britain, the European Union, the United States and others opposed to ZANU-PF policies - is the most serious threat to Mugabe's authority since independence in 1980, when Mugabe became president.

Speaking to IRIN after spending about two hours in custody, Tsvangirai said no charges were laid against him. "They just picked me up and took me to Harare Central police station," he said. Tsvangirai said he was arrested because the police searched his house on Thursday and found one of his guards with a two-way radio. They returned to arrest him because he did not have a licence for the device. No licence is required for the radio under Zimbabwean law.

Tsvangirai said he was convinced his arrest was aimed at intimidating and harassing him and other government opposition ahead of next year's election.

He also said he did not think that regional heads of state would agree with the six-member SADC team which left Harare this week. The team was reported as saying that it supported government efforts to prevent and curb violence and opposed threats of sanctions against the country. "I am very certain that the heads of state will not endorse such a position ... I am sure they will have to review it in the face of overwhelming evidence of ongoing violence and the hate speeches made by Mugabe," he told IRIN.

Hitting back at Mugabe for calling the MDC terrorists who were bent on sewing lawlessness, Tsvangirai was quoted in news reports as saying: "It is the MDC that is a victim of government violence. It is Mugabe who is building institutions of violence. He is using the government agencies, the police, the army, militias. He has told police not to arrest ZANU (PF) thugs. Eighty-three MDC people have been killed and no one has been arrested. Who are the victims and who are the perpetrators?" he asked.

DPA reported that Tsvangirai has been arrested twice before. In May last year, shortly before parliamentary elections, he was held for four hours at a police roadblock and freed without charge, the report said.

He was arrested again earlier this year on allegations of "incitement to violence" following a statement he made at a party rally in September 2000. The courts threw the case out of court in November, saying that the "unsavoury colonial laws" under which he was charged were unconstitutional.