Zimbabwe police fire teargas, bar opposition rally

HARARE, Feb 18 (Reuters) Zimbabwean riot squads fired teargas and water cannon to drive people off the streets of a troubled township in the capital Harare today after preventing the main opposition party from holding a major rally.

Police earlier arrested dozens of people and sealed off a sports ground where the rally was to be held, witnesses said, defying a court order to let the meeting go ahead.

Violence erupted when small groups of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) members tried to march to the sealed sports ground and some youths pelted police foot patrols with stones before being beaten away by baton-wielding officers.

The police also mounted roadblocks in the township, searching cars and questioning motorists.

The Zimbabwe High Court ruled on Saturday that the government must let the MDC hold its rally, rejecting the argument of the police that they had been given too little notice to find enough manpower to monitor the event.

Journalists saw riot police, some armed with rubber batons, guns and teargas launchers and some in armoured trucks, converging on the Zimbabwe Grounds in the volatile Highfield township on Sunday morning, arresting dozens of people who had begun to gather for the rally.

MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said the party had not officially called off the rally, but accepted it could not take place because of the police action.

POLICE BAR RALLY He said MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai had driven to the venue and tried but failed to persuade the police to allow the rally to go ahead.

''We have not cancelled the rally. It was cancelled by the police in defiance of the court order,'' he said, adding that Tsvangirai had stopped and talked to a group of MDC supporters during his brief trip to Highfield.

''The president simply told them 'the struggle continues,'' Chamisa said.

Police and government officials could not be reached for comment on the decision to defy the court order and to deploy riot squads in the township.

MDC national organising secretary Elias Mudzuri said around 200 young people who had been on security duty at the Zimbabwe Grounds overnight had been attacked and either driven away or detained by the police.

The MDC had planned to use the rally to launch its presidential election campaign. The election is due in March 2008 but the ruling ZANU-PF party plans to put it off until 2010 and to hold it at the same time as parliamentary elections.

Political tension is rising in the southern African country, beset by food shortages, inflation of nearly 1,600 percent, unemployment above 80 percent and rising poverty. Many doctors, teachers and university lecturers have gone on strike to press for higher wages.

Mugabe, 83, and Zimbabwe's ruler since independence from Britain in 1980, rejects blame for the crisis, saying the economy is a victim of sabotage by domestic and Western opponents trying to oust him from power.

REUTERS PDM KN1858