Zimbabwe police seize Tsvangirai buses

Zimbabwe's main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai address a press conference in the capital Harare, June 10, 2008.

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwean police impounded two campaign buses used by Morgan Tsvangirai on Friday, his party said, in the latest action against the opposition leader in the run-up to a June 27 presidential election.

Tsvangirai, who has been detained four times in the past week and has had his own vehicle confiscated, would continue the campaign, Movement for Democratic Change spokesman George Sibotshiwe said.

"The police have impounded the two buses that we were using. They are saying the buses are not properly registered, but that is not true, just harassment," he said.

"But (MDC) President Tsvangirai is continuing with his campaign here. We are using other cars that we had in our convoy."

Tsvangirai, human rights groups and Western powers accuse President Robert Mugabe of unleashing a brutal campaign to win the run-off later this month after he lost the first round on March 29.

Tsvangirai says 66 of his followers have been murdered.

Mugabe, who has ruled since independence from Britain in 1980, blames the MDC for the violence which has caused widespread international concern.

The third most senior MDC leader, Tendai Biti, was arrested on his return from abroad on Thursday and faces a treason charge which could carry the death sentence.

Earlier on Friday, a regional human rights group said Zimbabwean police had ordered domestic non-governmental aid groups to cease operations.

The South African Litigation Centre (SALC) said police had ordered several NGOs to close, including human rights groups and the Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association.

The move followed a ban last week on international humanitarian groups working in Zimbabwe, which faces a chronic food and economic crisis.

U.S. humanitarian affairs chief John Holmes said on Thursday the situation was deteriorating rapidly. He called it "very worrying and very serious ...with up to four million people in need of humanitarian assistance."

NOT ENOUGH LAWYERS

SALC director Nicole Fritz said in recent weeks human rights lawyers have been targeted. "There simply aren't enough lawyers left to try to challenge all these unlawful actions. And now the NGOs are being forced to close. The Zimbabwean government seems intent on ensuring that there simply will be no possible redress left to ordinary Zimbabweans," she said in a statement.

On Thursday, the United States called for urgent U.N. Security Council talks on Zimbabwe because it said Mugabe had ignored international calls to end political violence.

But diplomats said South Africa, supported by China and Russia, opposed Security Council involvement.

Mugabe and ZANU-PF were defeated in March for the first time since independence in 1980 but Tsvangirai failed to win the presidential vote outright, necessitating a second round.

A group of prominent African leaders joined the calls for an end to violence in Zimbabwe, once a regional bread basket but now suffering economic collapse.

"It is crucial for the interests of both Zimbabwe and Africa that the upcoming elections are free and fair," former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and 39 former African heads of state and civic leaders said in an open letter on Friday.

But South African President Thabo Mbeki, widely criticised for his softly softly attitude to Mugabe, on Thursday defended his government's policy.

"There are some further afield from us who chose to describe us as a so-called rogue democracy... because we refuse to serve as their subservient 'klipgooiers' (stone-throwers) against especially President Robert Mugabe," Mbeki told parliament.

The Southern African Development Community, a grouping of 14 nations including Zimbabwe, has sent a team of election monitors to Harare. Observers from Western nations critical of Mugabe's government are not being allowed into the country.

The political turmoil has compounded Zimbabwe's economic woes. Inflation has soared to more than 165,000 percent, unemployment is around 80 percent and food and fuel shortages are commonplace.