KEY POINTS:
HARARE - President Robert Mugabe today told Western countries to "go hang" after international outrage over charges his government assaulted the main opposition leader in police detention.
Opposition officials say police tortured Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai and several opposition and civic groups' leaders on
Sunday when they tried to attend a prayer vigil in a Harare township.
But the government has suggested Tsvangirai and his group resisted arrest and on Thursday upped the ante, accusing opposition supporters of waging a militia-style campaign of violence to topple Mugabe from power.
"It's the West as usual ... when they criticise the government trying to prevent violence and punish the perpetrators of that violence, we take the position that they can go hang," Mugabe said after a meeting with Tanzanian leader Jikaya Kikwete.
The 83-year-old Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980 and who frequently brands the MDC a puppet party sponsored by the West, was defiant alongside Kikwete.
"Here are groups of persons who went out of their way to effect a campaign of violence and we hear no criticism at all of those actions of violence, none at all," Mugabe said when asked to respond to criticism of his government's conduct.
Police said three officers were badly hurt late on Tuesday when suspected opposition supporters petrol bombed a police station in a Harare suburb, leaving their house in flames adding that the MDC's "orgy of violence was spreading" in the country.
"We believe that the attacks are assuming a militia-type of form," police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijenahe said as state television showed the badly burnt officers in hospital.
The MDC denied the charges and said they were an effort by Mugabe to deflect a growing outrage that followed a crackdown on the anti-government rally on Sunday.
Tsvangirai, among scores of opposition figures arrested at the banned protest, remained in hospital with head wounds that he said were the result of a police beating.
MDC officials said Tsvangirai, who has received glowing international praise since being filmed on Tuesday walking into a hospital battered and bruised, suffered a suspected fractured skull as a result of police brutality.
Other protesters ended up in hospital with similar injuries.
"Tsvangirai is still in hospital and recovering. He might appear tomorrow at a press conference we are planning, but he might not speak," MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said after being released from a hospital where he himself had been treated.
Chamisa said claims opposition supporters had launched a violent campaign against Mugabe's 27-year rule were meant to justify the "madness and brutality" of the government and soil the reputation of its opponents. The United States is among those that have sharply condemned the arrests, threatening to tighten sanctions on Mugabe and other top officials. United Nations and European Union officials warned against sanctions that hurt citizens more than leaders.
Australia has demanded that African countries, who have been roundly criticised for turning a blind eye to Mugabe's controversial rule, support tougher action against Zimbabwe.
Tanzania is one of a "troika" of countries in the Southern African Development Community charged with seeking to resolve Zimbabwe's long-running political and economic crisis. Kikwete said he had briefed Mugabe but declined to give details.
Mugabe has further fuelled tensions in the nation by suggesting he may seek to stay on as president beyond the scheduled end of his current term in 2008.
- REUTERS