African leaders meet on Zimbabwe, police move in Harare

By Katie Nguyen

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - African leaders meeting in Tanzania on Wednesday on Zimbabwe's political crisis were not expected to bow to Western-led pressure to censure President Robert Mugabe over a police crackdown.

Mugabe was due in Tanzania to brief the Southern African Development Community (SADC), gathered for the first time since his government suppressed a March 11 rally in which scores of Mugabe opponents were detained and later appeared showing signs of being beaten.

As leaders converged on the Tanzanian capital, Zimbabwe police sealed off the Harare headquarters of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which accuses Mugabe of political abuses and dire economic mismanagement.

Dozens of armed officers surrounded the office building, blocking roads and preventing anyone from entering for a scheduled MDC news conference.

The special two-day Tanzania summit will be a test for the 14-member SADC grouping, accused in some quarters of not flexing its political muscle against Mugabe's government.

Political analysts said regional leaders were unlikely to condemn Mugabe publicly, but the Tanzanian summit was important in focusing world attention on Zimbabwe's escalating crisis.

"Whatever spin the government will try to put on this, this is an emergency summit on Zimbabwe and it basically means that Zimbabwe has become an issue in Africa too," said Eldred Masunungure, a political science professor at Harare's University of Zimbabwe.

"But I don't think there is going to be the kind of public condemnation that some Western countries are calling for, and I am sure Mugabe will be happy with that," he told Reuters.