Morgan Tsvangirai, the Zimbabwean opposition leader and presidential contender, was seized by police on his way to an election rally and held for more than eight hours yesterday.

His arrest came against a backdrop of rising violence led by ruling party militia and state security agents against the Movement for Democratic Change, the party that Mr Tsvangirai leads. More than 50 MDC supporters, workers and polling agents have been killed since Robert Mugabe's defeat last month. The Government also sought to punish opponents of the Zimbabwean President by taking control of food aid distribution.

Mr Tsvangirai, who returned from exile last month to campaign for the presidential run-off, was travelling to a rally north of Bulawayo when police and secret service officials stoppedhis car.

After two hours at the side of the road, Mr Tsvangirai and his entourage, including his party's vice-president, Thokozani Khupe, and the secretary-general, Lovemore Moyo, were taken to a police station. Late last night Mr Tsvangirai was released without charge. After his release he said: “It is nothing but the usual harassment which is totally unnecessary. We have seen worse things than this.”

The last time the MDC leader was arrested, in March last year, he and other party officials were badly beaten, leaving him scarred about the eyes.

The wave of violence and arrests that began after elections on March 29 has increased alarmingly, with state agencies evidently told to stop at nothing to prevent the MDC from winning the poll, scheduled for June 27. In the worst incident of violence yesterday, assailants forced five opposition supporters to the ground and opened fire on them before dousing them in petrol and setting them alight, killing two.

But an even deadlier weapon, the use of vital food aid for political leverage, fell into the hands of the Government yesterday as it issued new orders taking over food distribution in all rural areas. Care International, one of the largest aid organisations operating in the country, providing assistance to nearly a million Zimbabweans, was ordered to cease operations after the Government accused the agency of campaigning on behalf of the opposition.

Mr Mugabe has resorted to withholding food or using it as a reward in the past, but the increasing dependence of poverty-stricken Zimbabweans on international aid agencies has made the flow harder to control.

A day earlier, at the United Nations food summit in Rome, Mr Mugabe had told the audience that British-led sanctions were responsible for Zimbabwe's widespread hunger and that aid agencies were being used as agents of the West. Yesterday, however, he was accused of “callous indifference” in depriving his own people of desperately needed aid. Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said at the summit that “to deprive people of food because of an election would be an extraordinary perversion of democracy, and a serious breach of international human rights law”.

In Harare, aid groups gave a warning that the Government was creating the conditions for a famine if it did not reverse the ban with immediate effect. “If we continue like this, we are going to have a crisis,” Cephas Zinhumwe, the chief executive of the Zimbab- wean National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations, said.

The areas that have had the severest restrictions on aid activity, Masvingo, Manicaland and Mashonaland, are those that have suffered the most violence since Mr Mugabe lost the first round of the elections to Mr Tsvangirai, even after widespread vote rigging and the weeks-long delay in the release of results. Areas that turned unexpectedly to the Opposition for the first time have seen the swiftest retribution.

Thousands of MDC supporters have now escaped escaped to neighbouring countries after receiving threats.

Andrew Makoni, a human rights lawyer, who fled to Johannesburg, said: “In the past there was isolated violence. My clients were abducted and tortured. Now when people are tortured they don't come back.”

Four of Mr Makoni's clients, all grassroots MDC activists were abducted three weeks ago. Their bodies were found in the bush a week later.

Tsvangirai’s trials

December 2001 Arrested twice and charged with using radio equipment without a licence

February 2002 Charged with high treason after being accused of plotting to assassinate Mr Mugabe. Acquitted by the High Court in Harare after lengthy trial and detention

March 2007 Badly beaten while in police custody; treated in hospital

January 2008 Held briefly before opposition protest march

Source: Times archives

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