Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai says he will leave the Dutch embassy in Harare in the next 48 hours.

He was speaking to Dutch radio from the embassy, where he took refuge on Sunday night after pulling out of a run-off election, citing widespread violence.

He said the Dutch ambassador had received assurances from the Zimbabwe authorities about his safety.

Meanwhile, an African election observer told the BBC torture was "the order of the day" in Zimbabwe.

BBC Southern Africa correspondent Peter Biles says the monitor interviewed opposition supporters in hospital and found that "everyone was utterly UN Srebrenica immunity questioned ...
US, British diplomats held in Zimbabwe ...
Fight on malaria stepped-up ... terrified".

'Cry baby'

Mr Tsvangirai told Dutch public broadcaster Radio 1 he hoped Zimbabwe's government would honour assurances about his safety it had offered the Netherlands ambassador.

He said: "I hope that they mean what they say. This is a regime which is acting irrationally."

Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, in a statement about his attempts to mediate in the Zimbabwean crisis, said Mr Tsvangirai had been fleeing soldiers when he took refuge at the embassy in Harare.

BBC world affairs editor John Simpson, who is in Harare, says critics of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader have been lambasting him for seeking refuge in a European embassy, rather than an African one.

He says few people in Zimbabwe know that Mr Tsvangirai has withdrawn from the race, because official media barely ever mention him.

He adds that Mr Mugabe is on course for a remarkable victory, when only three months ago he seemed to be on the ropes.

Zimbabwe's Police Commissioner, Augustine Chihuri, labelled Mr Tsvangirai's move to the Dutch embassy as an "exhibitionist antic", intended to provoke international anger.

He said Mr Tsvangirai, who was detained briefly on five separate occasions during recent election campaigning, had been making a desperate attempt to besmirch the election.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe's UN ambassador Boniface Chidyausiku told the BBC's Network Africa programme: "We have never prevented [Mr Tsvangirai] from campaigning.

"He's a cry baby… He has been free to move wherever he wanted to move."

Mr Chidyausiku has said Friday's presidential run-off would go ahead despite a unanimous statement on Monday by the UN Security Council that said a free and fair vote would be "impossible".

The British-drafted statement was toned down from an earlier draft but was the first time that South Africa, Russia and China had agreed to criticise President Robert Mugabe's government.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had called on Zimbabwe to postpone the run-off.

On Monday, more than 60 MDC supporters were arrested at the party's Harare headquarters.

The opposition says some 86 supporters have been killed and 200,000 forced from their homes by Zanu-PF militias but the ruling party blames the MDC for the violence.

The MDC won the parliamentary vote in March, and claims to have won the first round of the presidential contest outright. According to official results, Mr Tsvangirai was ahead of Mr Mugabe but failed to gain enough votes to avoid a run-off.

Mr Mugabe, 84, has accused Western countries of lying about Zimbabwe in order to justify an intervention.

"Britain and her allies are telling a lot of lies about Zimbabwe, saying a lot of people are dying," Tuesday's edition of the pro-government Herald newspaper quoted him as saying.

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(BBC)

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