ZIMBABWE:Police surrounded the main Zimbabwean opposition party headquarters and briefly detained its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, yesterday as African leaders met in Tanzania to debate Zimbabwe's escalating political crisis.
Mr Tsvangirai, who says he was badly beaten after an earlier police crackdown this month, was among a number of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) officials held when heavily armed riot police entered the party's Harare offices.
The arrests brought immediate condemnation from Britain, Zimbabwe's former colonial power, and the European Union. Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said officers arrested 10 MDC officials on suspicion of links to recent petrol bombings, bringing the number held on these charges to 35 since Tuesday.
Government sources said more arrests were likely in the coming days, whether opposition figures or journalists, who authorities accuse of trying to incite a coup against Mr Mugabe. One said: "Some people have just gone too far, talking and writing recklessly and they are going to be held to account."
A witness said he had seen Mr Tsvangirai leave his offices after police left yesterday. Others saw police take at least two computer monitors and cardboard boxes and herd a handful of people into a bus from the building.
"I would like to put it on record that Tsvangirai was never arrested," Mr Bvudzijena said. Police showed journalists two revolvers, dynamite and detonators, which they said were seized at the home of an MDC activist and were linked to the petrol bombings that had injured two policemen.
"The terrorist acts we are seeing are how civil wars start in any part of the world and this is how a country descends into anarchy," Mr Bvudzijena said.
The raid increased pressure on African leaders to censure Mr Mugabe, who has faced a firestorm of criticism for violently cracking down on opponents of his 27-year rule, at a special summit beginning in Tanzania yesterday.
European Union president Germany said it was "deeply concerned" at the arrests, and the European Parliament said it was time to end the "brutality" in Zimbabwe.
Political observers agree that the special two-day Tanzania summit will be a test for the 14-member Southern African Development Community (SADC), accused in some quarters of not flexing its muscle against Mr Mugabe's government. "We expect to solve the problem," Malawi's president, Bingu wa Mutharika, said on his arrival in Dar es Salaam.