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HARARE - Zimbabwean riot police arrested the country's top opposition leader and shot a man dead today as they crushed a prayer rally planned to protest against President Robert Mugabe.
Witnesses said police fought skirmishes with rock-throwing opposition supporters in the Harare township of Highfield, where organisers had tried to hold the rally to address Zimbabwe's deepening political and economic crisis.
Police arrested Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai and other opposition officials after blocking their motor convoy from driving to the rally site.
The party said Tsvangirai and the others were severely assaulted and that one MDC activist had been shot dead.
"Morgan Tsvangirai, his aides, civic leaders and several senior MDC officials have been arrested, detained without charge and severely assaulted," MDC national organising secretary Elias Mudzuri said in a statement.
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said in a statement a police patrol had killed a man after being attacked by a mob of "MDC thugs" at a shopping mall in the area, and that three police officers had suffered severe injuries.
"The police shot one male adult who appeared to be the leader of the group in the chest. He died on the spot and the group dispersed," he added, saying another group had burned a military truck and attacked a police patrol while using children as human shields.
Bvudzijena said Tsvangirai, Arthur Mutambara, who leads another faction of the MDC, and other MDC officials were detained because "they had been observed going around inciting people to indulge in violent activities".
In a statement, the opposition Save Zimbabwe Campaign said lawyers were being denied access to the detained and that police had arrested five student activists at a workshop in Harare.
The group charged that riot squads had forced shops, bars and churches to shut down for the day and assaulted patrons in beer halls.
"Highfield has been turned into a war zone," it said.
Riot police moved in force early on Sunday to head off the rally, saying it would violate a ban on political protests imposed after opposition supporters clashed with police in Highfield last month.
Organisers had argued the ban should not apply to a prayer vigil.
Witnesses said later in the day police had fired tear gas at youths who were throwing stones at their patrols, taunting them and defying orders not to move around in large numbers.
"There have been several skirmishes between the police and some youths, people throwing stones, and the police firing tear gas," a Zimbabwean journalist who lives in Highfield told a Reuters correspondent by phone.
Riot police mounted road blocks on major highways into the township, and were searching vehicles for arms and questioning motorists.
Police on Saturday accused some elements in the MDC of hiring and arming "thugs" to attack officers.
Authorities have tightened the screws on the opposition since violence broke out last month when police broke up an MDC rally despite a court order directing that it should be allowed.
State media said officials feared the rally was intended to launch street protests against Mugabe's government.
Zimbabwe has seen political tensions build as it sinks deeper into its worst economic crisis in decades, with inflation above 1,700 per cent, unemployment close to 80 per cent and shortages of food, fuel and foreign exchange.
Mugabe, 83, and in power since independence in 1980, dismisses the MDC as a puppet of Zimbabwe's former colonial master Britain.
- REUTERS
