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Zambia says deported Tsvangirai lied
By Lebo Nkatazo/Agencies
ZAMBIA
on Thursday expelled Zimbabwe's main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai
and eight of his lieutenants, just hours after they were accosted while
holding clandestine political meetings in a Livingstone hotel.
Tsvangirai and his delegation from the crisis-hit Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) were accused of lying and falsifying their identities at various times since January 31 when they began arriving in Zambia in different groups.
A Kenyan national who was meeting Tsvangirai and his entourage in the early hours of Thursday was still detained awaiting deportation, Zambian immigration officials said.
A spokeswoman for Zambia's immigration department said Tsvangirai and his colleagues were accosted by officials while meeting with the unnamed Kenyan at a resort.
No charges were laid against the MDC officials.
"We removed Tsvangirai from Zambia this morning for violating Zambia's immigration laws," Mulako Mbangweta, a spokeswoman at the immigration department, told Reuters.
The Zambian government, along with other Zimbabwe neighbours -- with the exception of South Africa -- has kept the MDC at arms' length. Regional leaders detest the MDC's perceived European and American backing, and have aligned themselves with President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF.
Tsvangirai and his group had been meeting at the Zambezi Sun Hotel in Livingstone, 500 km (300 miles) south of the capital Lusaka from where the hotel staff tipped off immigration officials about the meeting by the group, Mbangweta said.
It was not clear what the meeting was for, but hotel staff said the Kenyan could have been a donor representative. Sources at the hotel said the group falsified their identities.
A spokesman fro Tsvangirai's group, Nelson Chamisa, disputed any suggestions of illegal activity by the officials on Zambian soil.
He said: "That country’s immigration officials acted on wrong information supplied to them, but we had committed nothing wrong. We filled all the necessary documents, and we are surprised by their actions
"We are a legal national party driven by the people’s will and we are entitled to meet whoever we want. There is no need for us to tell you the people we were meeting, but just know that we were on a mission to bring change in Zimbabwe."
Chamisa was one of those deported.
Other members of the group were William Bango, Eddie Cross, Pauline Mpariwa, Thokozani Khupe, Lucia Matibenga, Gertrude Mtombeni and Isaac Matongo.
Mbangweta said Tsvangirai had entered the country on January 31, while the officials had arrived on February 2, all using the Victoria Falls border post, which joins the two countries.
Tsvangirai had stated his reason for being in Zambia as tourism, she said.
The officials were accosted by immigration staff while having dinner on Wednesday night, and did not resist when they were ordered to leave, the source said.
Tsvangirai's MDC lurched into its deepest crisis since it was formed in 1999 after party rebels rejected his call to boycott November elections for a new Senate which critics saw as part of President Robert Mugabe's push to consolidate his power.
Tsvangirai and his followers stayed away from the polls but the opposing faction took part, leading to a rancorous dispute over who really represents the political opposition in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe's state radio said Tsvangirai and his delegation were "left at Victoria Falls border post and were seen this morning roaming the streets of Victoria Falls."
MDC sources said
after the delegation were ejected from Zambia around 2am Thursday morning,
they proceeded to a lodge on the Zimbabwean side
where their cheques were refused.
"So they slept in the reception area," the source added.
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