Zimbabwe warns Tsvangirai 'will pay a heavy price'

Zimbabwe warns Tsvangirai 'will pay a heavy price'

MUGABE seen here with his Information Minister, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu

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By Staff Reporters

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe's government on Wednesday warned Morgan Tsvangirai that he will pay "a heavy price" for what it called a campaign of violence to oust it from power.

Tsvangirai, who leads a faction of Zimbabwe's splintered opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was in the intensive care at a Harare hospital after suffering a suspected skull fracture in police custody.

He told journalists on Wednesday that he had been randomly beaten with baton sticks after going to Highfield Police Station on hearing that his MDC rival, Arthur Mutambara, had been arrested after police cordoned off the venue of a planned opposition rally in Highfield.

In a statement released on Wednesday, Mugabe's government was unapologetic, and suggested that Tsvangirai and his MDC colleagues had been assaulted for resisting arrest and for launching a violent drive to overthrow his Zanu PF party.

"Those who incite violence, or actually cause and participate in unleashing it, are set to pay a very heavy price, regardless of who they are," Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, the Information Minister said.

"The Tsvangirai faction of the MDC has a long record of unleashing violence to achieve political goals. It has publicly restated its wish to use violence to overthrow government and as a means to power," Ndlovu said. "This will come to grief," he said.

The Zimbabwe government charged that a number of Western governments, including Britain and the United States, had made "unconditional statements of support to the violent MDC" while international media networks absolved the opposition of blame.

The government said the MDC's drift towards "violent confrontation and blatant thuggery" had seen it lately organising illegal meetings and protests, inciting anti-government violence in townships, and encouraging criminal attacks on police officers, arson and looting of shops.

"In particular, government has noted the MDC leadership's publicly announced mission to seek to topple the government through civil unrest in order to realise the British-led goal of 'regime change' in Zimbabwe," the statement said.

Mugabe's government said the MDC which accuses the ruling party of rigging its way to victory in three major elections since 2000 was pursuing a violent path because it had no popular support and could not win a democratic vote.

"It is a course of ruin, both electorally and in terms of their future as a lawful opposition," Ndlovu said.

Ndlovu said his government would not take lectures on democracy from Britain, the United States and other Western powers.

He said: “Zimbabwe is a sovereign country, which brooks no interference from any qorter in its own internal affairs. It rejects outright and as duplicitous attempts by erstwhile colonialists who have now turned themselves into violent invaders of other countries, to seek to use Zimbabwe to salve their consciences and rebuild their images by playing guardians of democracy worldwide.

“Let them look at their heinous past as colonisers, indeed look at their present bloody record in the Middle East and elsewhere, and ask themselves whether they still have any lessons on democracy to give to anyone, including
themselves.”

He added that Zimbabwe is a democracy which has without fail, held free and
fair elections at set times. And the country “prides itself for a clean ballot
and an electoral system which has been a model for many in the region and
beyond.”

He alleged an MDC campaign to attack police stations and law enforcement agents.

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