Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and a group of 49 fellow activists were given permission on Tuesday to go to hospital for treatment after appearing at a court in the capital Harare.
The agreement was reached behind before the formal start of proceedings once the group were brought to the magistrates court to face charges in connection with a banned anti-government rally crushed by the security forces on Sunday.
Florence Ziyanbi, an official in the attorney general's office, told the defendants: "Everybody who needs medical attention can access it right now." People then began streaming out of the court and into ambulances that were already waiting outside.
Earlier, Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of Zimbabwe's fractured opposition, is once again the focal point of the resistance to President Robert Mugabe after being arrested and beaten by the security forces.
Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change has been a shadow of its former self since it split at the end of 2005 over whether to contest senate elections and the one-time trade union leader seen as lacking his former clout.
But his arrest on Sunday, the day after his 55th birthday, has catapulted back to the centre of the fight against his 83-year-old nemesis who once put him on trial for treason and allegedly robbed him of power by fixing elections.
After keeping a relatively low profile in much of 2006, notably absent from aborted anti-government protests, Tsvangirai seems revitalised by Mugabe's bid to seek a two-year extension to his presidency which is due the end next year. "This country cannot afford three more years of suffering," Tsvangirai told reporters when Mugabe's plan became clear late last year. "Zimbabweans know what they want and they are ready to resist."
Crucial to his political revival was an apparent thawing of relations with the rival MDC faction, led by Arthur Mutambara who was also detained on Sunday as he tried to attend a mass rally along with Tsvangirai.
The two stood alongside each other on Tuesday before Harare magistrates in a courtroom packed with some of the leading lights of the opposition movement such as Lovemore Madhuku, head of the National Constitutional Assembly.
The MDC leader began his professional life as a textile weaver and in 1988 was elected secretary general of what later became the militant Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU). His persistent defiance of government policies saw him detained by the authorities, first in 1989 when he warned of "rising state repression" over a university closure after campus clashes.
In 1997, Tsvangirai narrowly escaped death when aggressors burst into his office and tried to hurl him from a 10th-floor window, according to his official biography.
Tsvangirai's power to mobilise the masses became apparent when in 1997 and 1998 he spearheaded a drive to launch a series of general strikes against the government that brought the country to a standstill.
On a tide of popular support, he formed the MDC at the end of 1999. In less than a year, the MDC became the first serious challenge to Mugabe's regime, but the government accused it of being a tool of the white minority and former colonial power Britain.
During general elections in June 2000, the MDC took almost half the seats in parliament, in spite of a violent electoral campaign in which about 30 of its supporters were killed.
Comments
Comments are closed.