Police arrested Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Friday and charged him with treason as anti-government protests faltered in the face of a massive show of force by President Robert Mugabe.
Tsvangirai, head of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was arrested after a news conference in which he vowed to press ahead with protests against Mugabe, whom he accuses of being an illegitimate and increasingly incompetent leader.
The US condemned the arrest and urged the MDC and Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party to hold urgent talks to seek solutions to Zimbabwe's worsening political and economic crises.
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said Tsvangirai was being charged with treason in connection with a series of statements since the disputed elections last March that allegedly incited his supporters to seek Mugabe's overthrow.
Police said they were also looking to question MDC Secretary-General Welshman Ncube on the new treason charges.
Tsvangirai, who urged Zimbabweans to turn out "in their millions" this week to express their dissatisfaction with Mugabe and ZANU-PF, has launched a legal challenge to Mugabe's election last year in polls widely decried as fraudulent.
Mugabe, speaking at a rally in Mamini, 150km northwest of Harare, made no reference to Tsvangirai's latest arrest but made clear his anger at the protest action.
"We were expected to quake and shake with fear at this threat from this pathetic puppet who regards the British as his masters and god," Mugabe said.
"It is very stupid and naive to think that we would just stand by and watch," he added.
In Washington, US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the heightened climate of confrontation and violence underlined the urgent need for dialogue between the government and opposition.
"Countries in the region must facilitate this dialogue between Mugabe and the opposition," he said.
The positive response to the opposition's stayaway call reflected growing frustration with the government's "ruinous" economic policies.
"Inflation is at 269 percent and rising. It's outpacing the government's ability to print currency and there's a rampant black market that reflects widespread shortages," Boucher said.
Lawyer Innocent Chagonda said Tsvangirai -- who is already on trial for treason in connection with an alleged plot on Mugabe's life -- would be held until yesterday when he was due to appear before a magistrate.
"There is absolutely no basis for the arrest," Chagonda told CNN, adding that Tsvangirai would deny seeking Mugabe's removal.
The MDC accuses Mugabe's government of political repression and mismanagement that has left Zimbabwe's economy in tatters.
Tsvangirai was briefly detained on Monday, and government lawyers are now seeking a court order to ban him from making "inflammatory" comments or inciting the public.
On Friday, the last day of a five-day campaign of MDC protests which the government has declared illegal, thousands of young men wearing white T-shirts emblazoned with the words "No to Mass Action" flooded central Harare, apparently to discourage any attempts by MDC protesters to take to the streets.
Elsewhere in the country, police stopped a handful of people who tried to march in the country's second city of Bulawayo, while another planned MDC protest in southern Masvingo province was reported to have collapsed in the face of heavy security.
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