HARARE—Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was detained on Wednesday as he campaigned for a presidential election run-off, his party said.
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said Tsvangirai's four-vehicle convoy was stopped at a roadblock manned by police and members of President Robert Mugabe's feared Central Intelligence Organisation. He was being held at a rural police station southwest of Harare.
"It appears they want to disrupt our campaign programme," said Tsvangirai's spokesman, George Sibotshiwe.
He said Tsvangirai might be charged with violating Zimbabwe's public order and security act after the campaign stop in the town of Lupane. Police made no immediate comment.
Tsvangirai, who has been arrested several times in the past, defeated Mugabe in a March 29 presidential election but failed to win the absolute majority needed to avoid a second ballot. The run-off is scheduled for June 27.
In March last year, Tsvangirai was detained and badly beaten in police custody after he tried to attend a banned anti-government rally in Harare.
Mugabe's vow never to allow the MDC to take power has stoked opposition fears that the ruling ZANU-PF will use intimidation and vote-rigging to extend the president's 28-year rule.
The United States said Tsvangirai's detention was deeply disturbing.
"He should be released immediately, unharmed, untouched," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington.
'Beaten and Threatened'
The opposition says 65 people have been killed by Mugabe's supporters since the election. On Wednesday it said soldiers and ZANU-PF activists had beaten and threatened to shoot Zimbabweans who wanted to support Tsvangirai.
"Mugabe is determined to turn the whole country into a war zone in order to subvert the will of the people and steal the June 27th election by any means possible," Tsvangirai said while campaigning in Bulawayo before he was held by police.
Mugabe says the opposition is responsible for violence.
The government confirmed that it had suspended the operations of aid agency CARE International and other humanitarian groups, saying they had become involved in politics and were backing Tsvangirai's campaign.
CARE International has denied the charge.
Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga said the groups would be allowed to resume their work if they avoided politics.
"They must choose between politics and genuine humanitarian work," he said.
U.S.-based Human Rights Watch accused Zimbabwe of using food as a political weapon, while the United States said the suspension would mean that more than 100,000 Zimbabweans would go hungry this month.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said she was deeply concerned by the reports.
"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," she said on the sidelines of a U.N. food summit in Rome.
Zimbabwe's agricultural sector has collapsed since 2000, when Mugabe's government began seizing white-owned farms as part of a land redistribution policy designed to help poor blacks.
Zimbabwe now suffers chronic food shortages and relies on imports and foreign aid to feed its people.
Mugabe blames the country's economic collapse on sanctions imposed by enemies in the West.
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