ZIMBABWE: Pro-Government militants rampaged through central Harare yesterday, attacking the headquarters of the Movement for Demcratic Change (MDC) and other opposition targets with a crucial presidential election less than three weeks away.
Hundreds of militants ran through Zimbabwe's capital for about three hours, wielding sticks, stones and shovels, also attacking Town House, the seat of the city government, and the office of the MDC leader, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai.
MDC candidates were filing nomination papers at Town House to stand in municipal elections set to coincide with the presidential election on March 9th and 10th, when President Robert Mugabe will face his stiffest challenge in nearly 22 years in power.
"They went there specifically with the mission of attacking our councillors," an MDC spokesman, Mr Learnmore Jongwe, said. "Some of them had to seek refuge in the council chambers."
The militants then attacked the MDC's main office, stoning windows in that building and nearby shops, before heading to a posh high-rise office building and shopping mall where Mr Tsvangirai, a former union leader, has an office.
Police were seen arresting MDC members as they left the party headquarters following the stoning. Several people, including bystanders, were injured in the attacks, but Mr Jongwe said the party was still trying to determine how many people had been hurt and how many arrested.
Police had sealed off the Town House building, where several ambulances were seen leaving.
Vendors at a market across the street said the attack sent throngs of people fleeing, only to be chased by militant backers of Mr Mugabe's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF).
Meanwhile, 11 church leaders in Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo, were in court for organising a prayer procession on Saturday through four churches to urge a peaceful presidential campaign. At the last church in the procession, police arrested an Anglican priest, the Rev Noel Scott, in the pulpit as he was ending the prayer service.