KEY POINTS:
HARARE - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's government today warned that the opposition would pay "a heavy price" for what it called a campaign of violence to oust it from power.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai is in intensive care after suffering a suspected skull fracture in police custody, and rights groups and his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) say he and 49 other opposition figures who were detained for three days were tortured over a banned rally.
Tsvangirai's arrest and alleged torture has sparked international condemnation and has once again brought Mugabe's controversial rule under the spotlight as Zimbabwe sinks deeper into its worst economic crisis in decades.
But in a statement today, Mugabe's government was unapologetic, and suggested that Tsvangirai and his MDC colleagues had been assaulted for resisting arrest and for launching a violent drive to overthrow his ZANU-PF party.
"Those who incite violence, or actually cause and participate in unleashing it, are set to pay a very heavy price, regardless of who they are," Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said in the statement.
"The Tsvangirai faction of the MDC has a long record of unleashing violence to achieve political goals. It has publicly restated its wish to use violence to overthrow government and as a means to power," Ndlovu said.
"This will come to grief," he added.
The Zimbabwe government charged that a number of Western governments, including Britain and the United States, had made "unconditional statements of support to the violent MDC" while international media networks absolved the opposition of blame.
The government said the MDC's drift towards "violent confrontation and blatant thuggery" had seen it lately organising illegal meetings and protests, inciting anti-government violence in townships, and encouraging criminal attacks on police officers, arson and looting of shops.
"In particular, government has noted the MDC leadership's publicly announced mission to seek to topple the government through civil unrest in order to realise the British-led goal of 'regime change' in Zimbabwe," the statement said.
Mugabe's government said the MDC -- which accuses the ruling party of rigging its way to victory in three major elections since 2000 -- was pursuing a violent path because it had no popular support and could win a democratic vote.
"It is a course of ruin, both electorally and in terms of their future as a lawful opposition," Ndlovu said.
- REUTERS
