Mugabe faces the music in Tanzania as police launch mass arrest of opponents

Robert Mugabe was fighting for his political life last night as he launched mass arrests of opposition leaders at home and flew to Tanzania for a showdown with regional leaders.

Morgan Tsvangirai, the main opposition leader, was arrested along with two dozen colleagues at a press conference called to highlight the epidemic of abductions and punishment beatings in recent days. Hundreds of opposition Movement for Democratic Change activists have been taken to hospital in what has become a daily ritual of illegal state-sponsored violence.

As the crackdown continued, Mr Mugabe arrived in Dar Es Salaam for a meeting of the 12-nation Southern African Development Committee, with his own future the only item on the agenda.

The 83-year-old President has come under mounting pressure from the international community, the opposition and increasing numbers within his own ruling party to step aside. Diplomats were hopeful that SADC members would push Mr Mugabe to accept an exit package and make way for an interim government. But his greatest threat comes at home, where members of the Zanu-PF Polit Buro openly discussed yesterday whether to ditch the octogenarian and put forth another candidate for next year's presidential election.

As he was leaving the country, Mr Mugabe's police sealed off two main streets in central Harare and stormed the headquarters of the MDC on Harvest Road. Armed police in riot gear detained more than two dozen people, including Mr Tsvangirai and a number of his senior aides. At time of going to press last night, only the MDC leader had been released. More than 20 others were still being detained.

Lawyers for the opposition said they did not know where they were being detained or when they would be released.

Mr Tsvangirai had called the news conference to detail the increasingly brutal intimidation of his party. Seven leading officials from the MDC were picked up at gunpoint on Tuesday night and yesterday morning, and only one of them has so far been found. Last Maengahama, a shadow deputy minister, was seized by plain-clothed assailants, severely beaten and dumped at a location 30 miles outside the capital.

The government has denied involvement in the punishment beatings, but The Independent has seen evidence that the attacks are being led by members of Mr Mugabe's own Zanu-PF militia, using unmarked cars and police-issue firearms.

The nightly beatings have brought a reign of terror to the capital and caused chaos among opposition cadres, many of whom are now in hospital or in hiding. One senior MDC source, who declined to be named, said: "This is the worst violence that we have seen since the land invasions in 2000. But this brutality is typical of the way that this regime has always worked."

Anger is rising among millions of the most impoverished Zimbabweans that live in the crowded townships surrounding Harare. Police are engaged in nightly skirmishes with youths who have been building barricades and burning tyres. The situation has become sufficiently volatile that critics of the government now fear that violent clashes with the regime are becoming inevitable.

The intensifying crackdown has come as economic collapse has left 85 per cent of the country in poverty and pushed Zimbabweans' life expectancy to the lowest in the world. Even Mr Mugabe's long-standing allies in the ruling party now want him sidelined as their own fortunes - collected through corruption and patronage - are threatened.

Speaking after his release, Mr Tsvangirai signalled that he was not determined to see Mr Mugabe humiliated: "We don't hate Mugabe, we think he needs psychiatric help. We're not talking about overthrowing the government, we have a constitutional right to democracy in this country and we can dignify an old man that has lost his mind.''

Hyper-inflation has seen the exchange rate from US$1 to a Zimbabwe dollar soar from 1,500 to 26,000 in under three years. If Mr Mugabe withstands SADC criticism and ploughs on, as he has indicated, he faces a possible palace coup as early as tomorrow.

The former army chief Solomon Mujuru and his wife, the Vice-President, Joyce Mujuru, are leading what is thought to be the strongest faction opposing him. The Vice-President was in South Africa this week in an effort, it is thought, to drum-up support for a Mujuru takeover.

Her husband is among Zimbabwe's wealthiest businessmen and the couple lived until recently on an illegally seized farm outside Harare. While it is reported that they no longer live together, the intensely private husband prefers to have his wife play the more public role.

The economic collapse has threatened Mr Mujuru's business interests, and his investments in the UK have caused a fallout with Mr Mugabe. Mr Mujuru is known to have made soundings with foreign investors in the country, as well as with Western diplomats who are eager to lift sanctions against Zimbabwe and displace Mr Mugabe.

Emmerson Mnangagwa leads the other Zanu-PF faction, and the former security chief has been a bitter rival of Mr Mujuru's. Their power struggle may enable the wily Mr Mugabe to persuade his party to keep him on for another election next year. He remains determined to "harmonise'' presidential and parliamentary elections, knowing his chances of winning depend on forcing the party to campaign with him.

The regime's victims

'M' Aged 30

Lying in her hospital she has a series of lesions on her legs and massive bruising. She has a heart-shaped wound revealing the bone on her right shin which will require a major skin graft.

"I was with Morgan at the prayer meeting (11 March) when the police took us. They took us to the police station where they beat my leg. There were six of them who beat me with their baton sticks. It went on for about an hour. They said 'you are Tony Blair's people'. There was a lot of pain. We were made to lie on our bellies while they beat [me] all over my body. Then I was locked up for two days. That night they were given 100,000 Zim dollars each for beating us."

'G' Aged 32

G has two pieces of green cloth covering the worst of his injuries. One of them covers a deep wound encircling his toe where bone shows through. The other covers his elbow and forearm where heavy blows have left a large lesion.

"It was 8pm and I was going home when I met these police with dogs. Some of them came at me and started beating me on the calves until they knocked me to the ground. This dog came and bit me on the foot and the knee. I had another dog, an Alsatian, right next to my face, and I thought it would bite me on the neck. I passed out and when I awoke the dog was eating my foot... the handler said to me 'run away'. But I said to her how can I with this foot?"