By Catherine Sasman WINDHOEK The Embassy of Zimbabwe in Windhoek yesterday emphatically denied allegations that opposition leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Morgan Tvangirai, was beaten while in police custody in that country. The incident has caused a worldwide outcry against the ZANU-PF government. “The Government of Zimbabwe does not brook any violence; we are a peaceful government,” said new Ambassador to Namibia, Chipo Zindoga. News reports alleged that Tsvangirai was brutally tortured by a commando unit based in the Cranborne Barracks in Harare on Sunday after a prayer rally in the Zimbabwean capital. A police officer based at the Machipisa Police Station purportedly claimed that Tsvangirai and other opposition leaders were beaten for nearly two hours by “drugged soldiers disguised as police officers”, according to ZimOnline. Ambassador Zindoga said investigations are underway to establish who is responsible for the violence against the MDC leaders, “but right now nobody knows who beat them up”. She claims that the Sunday MDC meeting which sparked the violence was not a prayer meeting as the opposition party maintains, but in fact a political rally held illegally by the opposition party. “It should be noted that the planned gathering was not a prayer meeting as the opposition had claimed under the so-called ‘Save Zimbabwe Campaign’ coordinated by the MDC’s purported Democratic Resistance Committees (DRC) and other anti-government civic organizations. It was actually a political rally made to launch the violent demonstrations,” said Zindoga. “It was a well-orchestrated defiance campaign by the MDC factions and their allies to launch a united assault on the government following the meeting they had on 9 January, where some Western ambassadors ordered them to unite under the ambit of the so-called ‘Save Zimbabwe Convention’ to confront the Government. “The same ambassadors pledged US$1ÃÆ’Æ‘ÀÃ…ÃÆ”šÃ‚ million for the political project,” Zindoga charged. A blanket ban was imposed on all politically-related demonstrations and rallies in Harare and Chitungwiza since February this year, presumably after disturbances that occurred at an MDC-organized rally. The ban is likely to remain in place for the next three months, according to Zindoga. Although the MDC had appealed to the Minister of Home Affairs in that country to hold the demonstration, the appeal did not suspend the order for the ban. “The order was therefore still standing, but the groups decided to go ahead and convene the so-called prayer meeting. The planned gathering was thus unlawful, and police had the lawful authority to disperse the demonstrators and arrest those who defied the order to disperse, hence the consequent action,” said Zindoga. The demonstration on Sunday, said Zindoga, was meant to attract the attention and to coincide with the UN Human Rights Council currently sitting in Geneva, Switzerland, as well as the forthcoming EU-Africa Summit to be held in Portugal. She further claimed that Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara “commanded hooligans using children as shields” to attack innocent citizens. She said the MDC supporters attacked a bus of mourners coming from a funeral and stole cell phones and money from the passengers, and left one woman with a miscarriage. “The police were also beaten up and sustained serious injuries, and one lost his life. The police had to use minimum force to deal with the demonstrators,” the ambassador maintained. “It should be stated that the Government of Zimbabwe will not brook any form of defiance campaigns,” she continued. She also took a swipe at the British government which, she says, has since 1997 actively tried to destabilize and derail Zimbabwe’s land reform process. She further charged that it wants to remove President Robert Mugabe from power and replace him with a “more pliant and directionless MDC and its puppet president”. The British government, she continued, uses coercive diplomacy in the EU, the Commonwealth and the United States to “conscript them to impose declared and undeclared sanctions on the Government and the people of Zimbabwe”, and to fund non-governmental organizations to “arouse and incite internal domestic upheaval to make Zimbabwe ungovernable”. She also charged that the MDC had campaigned in Western capitals for the imposition of illegal sanctions against Zimbabwe.