Mugabe: Opposition lying about political violence

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- President Robert Mugabe accused the opposition of falsely claiming that their supporters were being beaten up ahead of next week's presidential runoff, state-run media reported Saturday.

"They say this so that they can later say the elections were not free and fair. Which is a damn lie," the state Herald newspaper quoted Mugabe as saying at a campaign rally Friday in the western city of Bulawayo.

Mugabe faces opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the June 27 runoff after Tsvangirai won the first round but not by an outright majority.

On Friday, Tsvangirai said a "wave of brutality" has swept Zimbabwe since the runoff was called and implored Zimbabweans not to lose hope that they can change their country. His message was distributed by e-mail, one of the few ways he has of reaching voters.

The U.S. Embassy has released amateur video footage shot from a car window of a group of men running in terror from a small gang of militants.

Witnesses said gangs of militants wearing bandannas and scarves of Mugabe's party and carrying sticks and clubs roamed the township of Chitungwiza and other Harare townships Saturday after manning makeshift roadblocks overnight.

Residents were advised to stay indoors and avoid traveling by road at night. Militants also set up camps in suburban grassland and frogmarched residents to political meetings, the witnesses said.

Independent human rights groups say 85 people have died in pre-election political violence, which has displaced tens of thousands from their homes, most of them opposition supporters.

The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights said most of the dead were victims of militants of Mugabe's party, but at least five were ruling party supporters.

The group said 14 new victims were added to the list Thursday.

One of the dead was a school headmaster in a district northeast of Harare whose eye was removed and whose genitals were severed. The fire-charred body of another victim, the wife of an opposition local council official, was found with both feet and a hand removed, the doctors said.

The European Union threatened additional sanctions against Mugabe's government Friday. Even African countries such as Angola, traditionally sympathetic toward Mugabe, voiced concern.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Saturday condemned "those orchestrating the latest horrific escalation of violence."

"They must immediately end the violence, allow local and international monitors complete access and cooperate with the U.N. to allow a full investigation of the human rights abuses," he said.

In Bulawayo, Mugabe said that everywhere he visited was peaceful.

Zimbabwe's powerful police chief Augustine Chihuri blamed the opposition for the violence. Police have arrested 156 ZANU-PF and 390 opposition supporters, The Herald quoted him as saying. He said police were on high alert and had already started intensifying deployments throughout the country.

"Violence will not be treated with kid gloves," The Herald quoted him as saying.

Also Saturday, the High Court overturned a police ban on the opposition's main pre-election rally scheduled for Sunday at Harare's showground, opposition spokesman Nelson Chamisa said. Police on Tuesday banned the rally without explanation.

Tsvangirai's attempts to tour the country have been stymied by police at road blocks, and the state-controlled media all but ignore him.

The Herald said Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings would not air opposition campaign advertisements because they "contain inappropriate language and information." It cited the example of one ad which claimed that Tsvangirai won the election -- "which is not the case hence the run-off."

Mugabe, Zimbabwe's head of government since 1980, was lauded early in his rule for campaigning for racial reconciliation. But in recent years, he has been accused of ruining the economy and holding onto power through fraud and intimidation.

The economic slide of what was once the region's breadbasket has been blamed on the collapse of the key agriculture sector after often-violent seizures of farmland from whites.

Mugabe claimed he ordered the seizures, begun in 2002, to benefit poor blacks. But many of the farms instead went to his loyalists.