Mugabe snubs summit, opposition calls strike

By Nelson Banya

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's opposition on Friday called a general strike after officials said President Robert Mugabe would snub a regional summit called to discuss rising fears of bloodshed over delayed election results.

As tension increased over the election deadlock, police accused the opposition Movement for Democratic Change of "spoiling for a fight" and of deploying 350 youth wing members around the southern African country.

The police banned a Sunday rally by the MDC, which called an indefinite general strike starting next Tuesday to push for results from the March 29 election to be released.

State radio said Zimbabwe would be represented by three ministers at the Saturday summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which was expected to pressure Mugabe to release the results.

"We believe this meeting really is not necessary because Zimbabwe has made it quite clear that they are going to announce the results," Joey Bimha, Zimbabwe's foreign affairs permanent secretary, told state media as he prepared to travel to Lusaka.

Human rights organizations and the MDC say Mugabe has unleashed a campaign of systematic violence in response to his ruling ZANU-PF party's first electoral defeat, when it lost control of parliament in the March 29 election.

The MDC says its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, won a parallel presidential vote, whose results have not been announced, and have called on Mugabe to end his 28-year rule.

Tsvangirai told South African national radio from Botswana: "The situation in Zimbabwe is dire. The ... military has a rollout plan and is already embarking on intimidation, violence against the people."

Tsvangirai said he would be a "prime target".

The MDC accuses Mugabe of delaying the result so that he can intimidate opposition supporters before a runoff vote against Tsvangirai.

STRIKE

MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said the strike "starts Tuesday and goes on until the results are out".

A quarter of the population of Zimbabwe have fled to escape hyper-inflation of more than 100,000 percent, chronic shortages of food and fuel and 80 percent unemployment.

Mugabe's decision not to attend the summit was a direct snub to Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, the SADC chairman.

Mwanawasa last year described Zimbabwe as a "sinking Titanic" before getting back in line behind the body's relatively soft approach to Mugabe, who is still seen as a liberation-era hero to many Africans.