Zimbabwe opposition offices reportedly raided

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23940431

HARARE, Zimbabwe - President Robert Mugabe's government raided the offices of the main opposition movement and rounded up foreign journalists, including a New York Times correspondent, Thursday in an ominous indication that he may use intimidation and violence to keep his grip on power.
The New York Times said police took into custody its correspondent Barry Bearak, who was covering the elections.
"We do not know where he is being held, or what, if any, charges have been made against him," Bill Keller, executive editor of the Times, said in a statement. "We are making every effort to ascertain his status, to assure that he is safe and being well treated, and to secure his prompt release."

Keller noted that Bearak won a Pulitzer prize in 2002 for his coverage of life in war-torn Afghanistan.
Police raided two Harare hotels, one used by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and ransacked some of the rooms. At the other hotel, about 20 armed police, many of them dressed in plain clothes, searched every room and arrested four people, Les Wild, co-owner of the York Lodge told NBC News. Those arrested included two Christian aid workers and the two journalists. "Mugabe has started a crackdown," Movement for Democratic Change general secretary Tendai Biti told The Associated Press. "It is quite clear he has unleashed a war."
Biti said the raid at the Meikles Hotel targeted "certain people ... including myself." Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was "safe" but had canceled plans for a news conference, he said.
Biti said that Thursday's clampdown was a sign of worse to follow but that the opposition would not go into hiding.
"You can't hide away from fascism. Zimbabwe is a small country. So we are not going into hiding. We are just going to have to be extra cautious," he said.
Mugabe reportedly ready for a runoff
Independent observers say their own projection based on results posted at a representative sample of polling stations showed opposition leader Tsvangirai won the most votes in Saturday's election, but not enough to avoid a runoff.
Mugabe's Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga said Mugabe was ready for a runoff, dashing hopes that he would bow quietly off the national stage he has dominated for 28 years.
"President Mugabe is going to fight. He is not going anywhere. He has not lost," Matonga said on the British Broadcasting Corp. "We are going to go hard and fight and get the majority required."

On Thursday, Mugabe was shown on state television meeting African Union election observers, his first public appearance since the elections.
Questions about ballot counting
A commission member indicated presidential results would be announced Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. But that was before the commission announced that Thursday's expected announcement of senate results was delayed because of "logistical problems."

The commission said it still was receiving ballot boxes from the provinces, raising questions about where those votes had been since Saturday's elections, amid charges there was a plot to rig the results. Western election observers have accused Mugabe of stealing previous elections.
Mugabe has ruled since his guerrilla army helped force an end to white minority rule in then-Rhodesia and bring about an independent Zimbabwe in 1980.
He ordered the often-violent seizures of white-owned commercial farms, ostensibly to return them to the landless black majority. Instead, Mugabe replaced a white elite with a black one, giving the farms to relatives, friends and cronies who allowed cultivated fields to be taken over by weeds.
Today, a third of the population depends on imported food handouts. Another third has fled the country and 80 percent is jobless. Inflation is the highest in the world at more than 100,000 percent and people suffer crippling shortages of food, water, electricity, fuel and medicine. Life expectancy has fallen from 60 to 35 years.
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