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Nairobi: Zimbabwe's opposition party accused the country's military yesterday of plotting to assassinate presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai using snipers. Secretary-General Tendai Biti, of the Movement for Democratic Change, made the allegation in Kenya's capital.
"The assassination plot involves snipers," Biti said after a news conference in Nairobi. He said 18 snipers were involved in the alleged plot.
"It is the military [plotting], the JOC [Joint Operational Command] that has been running the country" since Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, lost March 29 elections to Tsvangirai. "I cannot speak [more] of that because it would put a lot of lives at risk," Biti said.
Biti said Tsvangirai planned to return to Zimbabwe to contest the June 27 run-off election once security measures are in place to protect him against the alleged assassination plot. The opposition said it received details of the alleged plot on Saturday as Tsvangirai was on his way to the airport in Johannesburg, South Africa, to return home.
Strongest terms
Biti also condemned African leaders' failure to confront Mugabe, Zimbabwe's leader of 28 years, using the strongest terms yet used by his party.
And he said the campaign of violence by Mugabe's regime could backfire, entrenching opposition with many of the millions of Zimbabweans who have fled the country planning to return to vote in the June runoff presidential election.
A third of the population has fled Zimbabwe in recent years as the country confronts chronic shortages of food, medicine, fuel and cash precipitated by the government's seizure of white-owned farms that once produced enough to feed the country and export to neighbours.
The government this month introduced a half-billion Zimbabwe dollar note in efforts to deal with runaway inflation that unofficial estimates put at 700,000 percent a year.
Mugabe's 'theft'
Tsvangirai says he won the elections outright. But official results and those compiled by independent monitors show he did not win the 50 per cent plus one vote needed to avoid a runoff.
Biti said the run-off legitimises Mugabe's "theft" and would not resolve Zimbabwe's crisis. It still was not too late to negotiate a "unity government of national healing". Not contesting was not an option as it would hand Mugabe victory, he said.
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