• NEW: Britain, EU condemn arrests of Zimbabwe opposition leaders
• Police raid opposition party HQ before scheduled news conference
• Party leader Morgan Tsvangirai, others arrested, official says
• African leaders meet in Tanzania to discuss crisis in Zimbabwe
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As we go forward, may the peace of God be with you; and may we pray for that peace to be found throughout the great nation of Zimbabwe.
The Latest from Zimbabwe (CNN)
Zimbabwe opposition leaders arrested (Reuters)
HARARE, Zimbabwe (Reuters) — Zimbabwe police stormed the main opposition party’s headquarters and arrested its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, on Wednesday, as African leaders gathered in Tanzania to debate Zimbabwe’s escalating political crisis.
Tsvangirai, who opposition officials say was badly beaten during 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 MDC said.
The arrests brought immediate condemnation from Britain, the former colonial power in Zimbabwe, and from the European Union.
The MDC said Tsvangirai had been due to hold a news conference “on the escalating and systemic campaign of violence and intimidation” by President Robert Mugabe’s government.
Mugabe: “Little Fellows” like Bush, Blair don’t scare me [Reuters]
HARARE, Zimbabwe (Reuters) — Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe vowed on Friday to survive any Western attempt to dislodge him from power.
Mugabe said Britain and the United States would never overcome the support he enjoys in his ruling ZANU-PF party, which led the former Rhodesia to black majority rule in 1980.
“Nothing frightens me, not even little fellows like Bush and Blair. I have seen it all, I don’t fear any suffering or a struggle of any kind,” Mugabe, 83, said to cheers from ZANU-PF supporters at a meeting in Harare.
“I make a stand and stand on principle here where I was born, here where I grew up, here where I fought and here where I shall die,” Mugabe said, accusing the West of sponsoring the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to overthrow his government.
One of Zimbabwe’s top Roman Catholic clerics, Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo, on Friday repeated his call for mass peaceful protests to end Mugabe’s 27-year rule.
Harare Report: 1 March, 2007
Undercover report from Harare together with a short interview with Henry Olonga - aired on ITV in the UK 1st March 2007 at 2230hrs
Save Zimbabwe Campaign Prayer Meeting: 11 March, 2007
Activists were arrested as they gathered in Highfields, Harare, on March 11. Many were badly beaten whilst in police custody. This is a slideshow of images from the Prayer Meeting.
Zimbabwe threatens to expel foreign diplomats
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe’s foreign minister told Western diplomats Monday they would be expelled if they gave financial or diplomatic support to government opponents.
Pressuring diplomats would make it even harder for the international community to keep tabs on a government accused of repressing its people and ruining its economy. The Zimbabwean government prevented opponents from leaving the country over the weekend and has long severely restricted the press.
A diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said U.S. Ambassador Christopher Dell, an outspoken critic of Zimbabwe’s human rights record, walked out of a meeting at which the warning to diplomats was delivered after Foreign Minister Simearashe Mbengegwi said he would not respond to any questions.
The foreign minister, acting on instructions from President Robert Mugabe, told the Western diplomats that the Vienna Convention governing diplomatic behavior prohibited foreign embassies from involving themselves in the internal affairs of the host nation.
AP: Tutt decries silence on Zimbabwe’s attacks on opposition
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Nobel peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Friday lambasted African silence about the brutal treatment of democracy activists in Zimbabwe.
“We Africans should hang our heads in shame,” said Tutu, who is widely regarded as South Africa’s moral conscience. “How can what is happening in Zimbabwe elicit hardly a word of concern let alone condemnation from us leaders of Africa?”
There has been increasing criticism of South Africa’s refusal to condemn the arrest and beatings of scores of opposition demonstrators, including the main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.