HARARE - Zimbabwe Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was yesterday engaged in a bizarre waiting game with the authorities, after dodging a huge police operation to arrest him and sneaking back into the country to drive home.
Amid threats from police that his arrest on incitement-to-violence charges was "imminent," the mood in the capital, Harare, was tense.
Police used teargas on two demonstrations and arrested up to 12 supporters of Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Three of the party's MPs, held without charge, spent their second night in custody.
After a day of playing cat-and-mouse with police, who were present in force at Zimbabwe's ports of entry, Tsvangirai, who had been in South Africa, turned up at his house in a Harare suburb. He greeted friends and family, spoke to journalists in his garden, then phoned police to tell them he was back.
The state-owned Sunday Mail, quoting an unnamed police official, had said that Tsvangirai would be arrested on his return and face treason charges for saying President Robert Mugabe would be forcibly removed from power if he did not retire.
At Harare Airport, police set up roadblocks to block MDC supporters as security officials waited for Tsvangirai.
The 48-year-old was unrepentant over his comment at a rally 10 days ago that it was time for Mugabe to resign and that "if you don't want to go we will remove you violently" - a phrase the Government claims was an incitement to violence.
Yesterday, the MDC leader said: "I have no regrets over the statement I made. Mugabe either chooses to go peacefully or the people may resort to spontaneous action.
"If I have committed an offence, I must face the due process of law, and I have to hand myself over to police." He asked his supporters "not to get excited over this hullabaloo."
Tsvangirai, who is believed to have used a private plane to re-enter Zimbabwe, possibly landing on a game reserve airstrip or a farm, said he had met regional leaders during his trip, including former South African President Nelson Mandela.
"He still holds immense influence and I asked him to consider convincing his colleague up here [Mugabe] to go," said Tsvangirai.
The disclosure of the meeting with Mandela is likely to embarrass Thabo Mbeki.
The South African President has come under fire for tacitly supporting the violent campaign of land invasions underway in Zimbabwe and for failing to condemn Government-orchestrated attacks that left 30 dead in the run-up to parliamentary elections in June. The MDC won 57 out of 120 seats in those elections.
Police said the three MDC MPs in custody - Job Sikhala, Tafadzwa Musekiwa and Justin Mutenda Dzamera - had been questioned over allegedly inciting violence at a township rally at the weekend.
It was not clear what, if any, charges would be brought against them.
- INDEPENDENT
Mugabe's foe skips past police cordon
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.