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Tsvangirai spokesman assaulted

"He was beaten on the head with iron bars. There was blood all over his face."

Tendai Biti, secretary-general of Movement for Democractic Change

The spokesman for Zimbabwe's main opposition leader was assaulted by security forces as he tried to leave the country, a party official said.

Nelson Chamisa, aide to Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai, was assaulted at Harare International Airport on Sunday as he was leaving for Belgium via London to attend a meeting of the EU and Africa Caribbean and Pacific group in Brussels, the party's secretary-general, Tendai Biti, said from Johannesburg.

"He was beaten on the head with iron bars. There was blood all over his face. He is in a critical condition at a private hospital in Harare," Biti said.

The assault follows Saturday's re-arrests at the airport of three opposition activists, who were allegedly assaulted along with Tsvangirai when police broke up a March 11 protest meeting.

Meanwhile, President Robert Mugabe accused the opposition of being terrorists supported by Britain and the West, and Tsvangirai said the crisis in Zimbabwe had reached a "tipping point."

Grace Kwinje and Sekai Holland, among the most severely injured in last week's incident, were prevented from leaving to receive medical care, and Arthur Mutambara, leader of an opposition faction, was later also arrested at the airport.

Tawanda Mutasah, director of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, said that Kwinje and Holland were due to travel to Johannesburg to receive specialist post-traumatic care.

Mutasah's organization said in a statement issued on Sunday that Holland, 64, was completely immobilized on her left side, having suffered multiple fractures including a broken arm and leg and three broken ribs. She has undergone an operation on a fracture in her left ankle and has severe bruising causing internal complications.

The organization quoted a statement by the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights which said that "injuries sustained by Sekai Holland were worsened by denial of timely access to medical treatment which led to an infection of deep soft tissue in her left leg."

The statement said that Kwinje suffered head injuries and extensive bruising. Damage to her right ear is thought to require reconstructive surgery.

Zimbabwean police used tear gas, water cannon and live ammunition to crush the March 11 gathering, and beat activists, during and after arrests, according to opposition members.

The latest violence has drawn new attention to a deteriorating situation in the southern African country, where the increasingly autocratic Mugabe is blamed for repression, corruption, acute food shortages and inflation of 1,600 percent -- the highest in the world.

Mugabe, 83, has rejected the international condemnation following the arrests and alleged beating, lashing out at critics and telling them to "go hang," and he vowed to crackdown on further protests.

Speaking at a ceremony to mark International Women's Day in Harare on Saturday, Mugabe accused the opposition party of resorting to violence sponsored by former colonial power Britain and other Western allies to oust his government, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

"We have given too much room to mischief-makers and shameless stooges of the West. Let them and their masters know that we shall brook none of their lawless behavior," Mugabe was quoted as saying in the Sunday Mail.
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