Opposition Arrested as Election Nears in Zimbabwe

RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.

STEVE INSKEEP, host:

And I'm Steve Inskeep. Good morning. Let's go next to - or hear more about Zimbabwe, where authorities have detained the nation's two top opposition leaders. This comes after a presidential election and before a runoff election that would determine the next ruler of Zimbabwe. And now President Robert Mugabe's government is accused by the opposition and by the church and human rights leaders of unleashing a campaign of violence and fear to stop his opponents from voting. NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton now joins us now from neighboring Johannesburg, South Africa to talk about the situation. And when we say the top two opposition leaders have been detained, this includes Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition candidate for president, Ofeibea?

OFEIBEA QUIST-ARCTON: Indeed. Two separate incidents: Morgan Tsvangirai is campaigning for the second round. In fact, they're calling it their victory round because he says he won the election. But he's been campaigning in the rural areas. Apparently, he was picked up by police. And in a separate incident on his return from South Africa to Zimbabwe at the airport, the secretary general of the Opposition Movement for Democratic Change Tendai Biti was picked up by police and apparently handcuffed right there at the airport. It appears that he is going to be charged with treason, and that carries possibly the death penalty in Zimbabwe.

INSKEEP: Just checking the obvious here: Does that mean there's not going to be a presidential runoff after all?

QUIST-ARCTON: Steve, this is the big question. I mean, as you said in your introduction, church leaders, diplomats, the American ambassador last week, other diplomats and human rights campaigners, as well as the opposition, say that the campaign of violence and intimidation that has been launched by the government or the government's supporters is because ultimately, they want to say the security situation is not tenable and that the election cannot be held. Now the United Nations is meant to be getting involved. We are told that a UN special envoy is coming next week. But since that election of March 29th, things have been getting steadily worse in Zimbabwe. And this is a country that already has huge economic problems, with hardly any fuel, hardly any food, and people trying to make ends meet. So we've got a political, as well as an economic crises.

INSKEEP: We're talking with NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton about developments today in Zimbabwe, where the opposition leader - two opposition leaders have been jailed and possibly are going to be charged with treason. And one other quick question, Ofeibea: Is there any semblance of an independent justice system and an independent judiciary that might rule on the fate of these men?

QUIST-ARCTON: Well, that's it. If you're the opposition, you'll say absolutely not, that the judiciary has been co-opted by President Robert Mugabe. But let me just say, Steve, that Mugabe has now been in power for almost 30 years in Zimbabwe, since independence, from 1980. It looked briefly - when he lost the parliamentary election to the opposition - that he might be thinking perhaps this is the time to go, and that the hardliners in the party said no. We are going to fight all the way. And since then, we have seen this campaign of violence, although the government says it's the opposition launching.

INSKEEP: Okay, thank you very much. That's NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton. Ofeibea, thanks.

QUIST-ARCTON: Pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.