Zimbabwe opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, Thursday said he would return home this weekend, after nearly a month and a half out of the country, despite fears of an assassination plot.

Speaking during a visit to a violence-hit township in Johannesburg, he told reporters that he would return home on Saturday, to begin campaigning ahead of a run-off election against veteran President Robert Mugabe scheduled for June 27.

He also linked the violence against immigrants in South Africa to the crisis in his homeland, where inflation is the highest in the world at 165,000 per cent and employment runs at 80 percent.

“The causes for this crisis are none other than our political crisis back home,” said the former trade union leader as he visited Alexandra, a slum area in northern Johannesburg where anti-immigrant violence began last week.

Meanwhile, the Zimbabwean government has accused the United States and Britain of fanning the politically-motivated violence rocking the country ahead of the run-off election.

President Robert Mugabe told police Thursday to ignore opposition accusations that they are behind political intimidation and blamed his foes for violence, ahead of a presidential election run-off.

In a new twist to the long-drawn out political crisis in the southern African country, President Robert Mugabe’s government said it had unearthed “overwhelming evidence” that the US embassy and other Western embassies in Harare were playing a pivotal role in the violence.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), whose leader Mr Tsvangirai beat Mr Mugabe in the initial polls in March, but failed to avoid the run-off, says 42 of its supporters have been killed and thousands displaced by the violence blamed on ruling party followers.

The violence flared up soon after it emerged that the ruling Zanu PF had lost its parliamentary majority to the MDC factions, for the first time since independence from Britain in 1980.

Speaking on a live programme on state television Thursday evening, Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa claimed that the two countries were providing transport to MDC youths from the cities, allegedly carrying out the attacks in rural areas.

“There is evidence of a third force behind politically-motivated violence cases,” Mr Chinamasa said.

“We are aware that the US and British embassies, with the help of their allies, are bussing MDC youths to attack hapless ZANU PF supporters.”

He claimed that the two countries were only paying medical bills for MDC victims of the violence, ignoring the ZANU PF supporters.

But MDC spokesman Mr Nelson Chamisa, who was also part of the panel, immediately shot back, accusing the minister of lying.

He said the police had been reluctant to respond to reports that their supporters were being killed and tortured by veterans of the country’s liberation war and ZANU PF youths because of political pressure.

Despite the government’s vehement denials that soldiers were involved in the spiralling violence, the United Nations last week said security forces, youth militias and war veterans and supporters of both ZANU PF and the MDC were perpetrating acts of violence.

“There is an emerging pattern of political violence inflicted mainly, but not exclusively, on rural supporters of the MDC party,” the UN’s country representative, Mr Augusto Zakarias said.

Mr Mugabe, 84, accused Zimbabwe’s former colonial master, Britain, and the US of funding the MDC to effect a regime change.

He says the two countries are bitter that he took away commercial farms from white farmers, for redistribution to landless blacks.

Last week, ambassadors from Western countries, including representatives from the US and Britain, were detained at a police road block outside Harare after they visited victims of the violence in rural areas.

The MDC officials have expressed fears that there appeared to be a campaign to ensure that the party’s members flee their homes, so that they do not vote in the presidential run-off.

Meanwhile, the party said police had arrested two of its newly-elected legislators, Ian Kay and Amos Chibaya, on what it called “an onslaught on key party activists and leaders to render it comatose ahead of the runoff.”

“The charges against Chibaya are that he addressed a rally two weeks ago, where he sought to incite junior police officers to rebel. The charges against Kay are unclear,” MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told Reuters.

At least six MDC lawmakers have been arrested since the combined March elections, and the opposition says 43 of its members have been killed by militias loyal to Mugabe.

But speaking at a ceremony to confer ranks on senior police officials in Harare, Mr Mugabe said the MDC was on an “evil crusade” to divide the people of Zimbabwe.

“The Zimbabwe Republic Police and all security agencies should not shudder because of the barrage of false and orchestrated criticism by the opposition…,” he said.

“The MDC opposition, formed at the behest of Britain in 1999, is on an evil crusade of dividing our people on political lines as they continue to fan and sponsor heinous acts of political violence targeting innocent citizens,” said President Mugabe, who dismisses his opponents as stooges of the West. The MDC denies the charge.

Zimbabweans hope next month’s run-off will arrest a downward economic spiral.

Mr Tsvangirai is a former union leader who has been a thorn in Mugabe’s side for a decade as the head of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the main opposition group.

The son of a bricklayer, Mr Tsvangirai was born in 1952 in central Zimbabwe.

He worked in a mine to feed his family and cut his political teeth in the labour movement as a mine foreman.

Mr Tsvangirai helped found the MDC in 1999.

Despite intimidation, it stunned the ruling party by winning 57 of 120 seats at stake in a 2000 parliamentary vote.

Mr Tsvangirai was acquitted of plotting to assassinate President Robert Mugabe and seize power before 2002 presidential elections.

Mugabe’s party won a crushing majority in a 2005 parliamentary election, which the MDC said was rigged.

The MDC split in 2005 in a bitter feud over how to tackle Mugabe. A splinter group accused Mr Tsvangirai of behaving in a dictatorial fashion.

Mr Tsvangirai was arrested at an anti-Mugabe rally in 2007.

He said he had been attacked at a police station. Critics said the incident help revive his sagging political fortunes.

The long-awaited second round follows the disputed 2008 presidential elections, in which official results showed Mr Tsvangirai beat Mugabe, but not by enough votes to avoid a run-off.

(Source)