The crash, on a busy two-lane highway between Tsvangirai’s hometown of Buhera and the capital city of Harare, comes just weeks after the start of a power-sharing agreement between Tsvangirai and his political rival, President Robert Mugabe.

Analysts say the crash is bound to raise suspicion of foul play, with one former U.S. diplomat calling for an outside investigation, saying it is not the first time that a political foe of Mugabe has been killed or injured in a car crash.

Members of Tsvangirai’s political party, the Movement for Democratic Change, said Friday that it was too early to tell whether the crash is anything other than an accident.

Tsvangirai’s aide and driver also were injured in the head-on collision with a large truck, according to his spokesman, James Maridadi.

Movement for Democratic Change spokesman Nelson Chamisa said he spoke to Tsvangirai at the hospital, and the party leader was in “relatively stable” condition. Video An MDC spokesman describes ‘critical’ accident »

Sources at The Avenues Clinic in Harare said that Tsvangirai was in stable condition with minor head injuries and that the prime minister was alert and talking. One source said the attending doctor had told him of his wife’s death.

Another said that doctors were planning to keep Tsvangirai overnight for observation and that specialists were checking his condition.

Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader, took office last month under a power-sharing deal with Mugabe after a contentious election.

Tsvangirai’s MDC reached the power-sharing agreement with Mugabe in September after months of angry dispute that included violence. More than 200 deaths, mainly those of opposition supporters, were reported leading up to and in the aftermath of the election.

“I’m skeptical about any motor vehicle accident in Zimbabwe involving an opposition figure,” said Tom McDonald, the U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe from 1997 to 2001. “President Mugabe has a history of strange car accidents when someone lo and behold dies — it’s sort of his M.O. of how they get rid of people they don’t like.”

McDonald cited the 2001 death of Defense Minister Moven Mahachi, Employment Minister Border Gezi’s death in 1999 and the death last year of Elliot Manyika, a government minister and former regional governor.

All three died in car crashes.

“This is several,” McDonald said. “So, when I hear that Tsvangirai was in an accident, it gives me pause.”

McDonald, now an attorney with the Washington law firm Baker Hostetler, urged a full investigation by outside authorities.

One analyst who studies the region said the collision could “exacerbate” the fragile unity government.

“There will undoubtedly be suspicions about the cause of the crash and whether there was foul play involved,” said Jennifer Cooke, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“At a time when there needs to be confidence-building measures, this incident potentially raises suspicions and undermines the potential for greater cohesion of the government. [There is] huge potential for the agreement to be manipulated by Mugabe.”

McDonald, however, was quick to say that traffic accidents are common in Zimbabwe. The highway on which Tsvangirai was traveling is a two-lane road where tractor-trailers are common, vehicles in the country are often in bad shape and drivers often are inexperienced, he said.

“It’s certainly plausible that this was just one of those tragic things,” he said.

The collision occurred on the Harare-Masvingo Road as Tsvangirai and his wife headed to his hometown of Buhera, south of the capital, Harare, his spokesman said.

The couple, who were married in 1978, have six children, according to the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Last month, Susan Tsvangirai told a BBC affiliate that the past decade had been an “endurance test” for her husband and his MDC colleagues.

“People went through hell, but they stuck to their ideals to seek change through democratic means,” she said. “This was a struggle that we endured with MDC cadres, activists, supporters and peace-loving Zimbabweans.

“To them I say thank you so much for the support they gave the MDC to reach this momentous period.”

A former miner and union organizer, Morgan Tsvangirai first ran for president in 2002 against Mugabe, who has been the country’s leader since it gained independence from Great Britain in 1980.

Since then, Tsvangirai has been charged with treason twice and accused of plotting to assassinate Mugabe. Tsvangirai was arrested and allegedly beaten in 2007. The criminal charges against him were dropped.

Car-truck crash kills Zimbabwe prime minister’s wife, injures him

Furious rank-and-file soldiers smashed their way into black-market shops dealing in US dollars and snatched cash from illegal money-changers on the street, prompting hopes in some quarters that this was the first spark of a military rebellion against Robert Mugabe.

There is little doubt that the trouble has unnerved the government and the army leadership, who saw the potential danger in soldiers getting together with thousands of disenchanted civilians queuing at the banks to withdraw cash.

As international calls mount for President Mugabe to be removed by force, the attitude of the armed forces has become a crucial factor in maintaining the 84-year-old leader’s grip on power. Speaking to The Observer, a Zimbabwean army captain said more than 100 soldiers were arrested after the riots, which spread beyond Harare, but added that he detected little support among ordinary soldiers for outright rebellion.

‘One of my prime duties is to suppress the rank and file,’ he said. ‘The commanders have told us officers that we will be held accountable for the behaviour of our men, so we have to watch for signs of trouble and prevent it.’

The captain, who asked not to be identified, said that he personally wants Mugabe out of office as soon as possible. However, that would not prevent him watching the men under his command to ensure they don’t try to make that happen by provoking a coup.

‘Nobody likes Mugabe now,’ he said ‘They are not loyal to him. But the soldiers will still obey orders. The army still has quite a good grip.’

The captain also noted that if soldiers wanted to rebel, they would almost certainly have to do so without their weapons. ‘The solders who revolted did not have guns. Weapons are kept under lock and key. They would have to break into the armoury to get them, and the ammo is not kept with the guns,’ he said.

Uncertainty would be another factor, he predicted. While Zimbabwe’s civilians look to the soldiers to lead the way, the soldiers look to the civilians.

‘There are complaints among the soldiers that the civilians won’t do anything. If the civilians went out on to the streets, then the soldiers say they would stand back and not harm them, and maybe even join them,’ he said.

‘Plenty have deserted. They go down to South Africa. Because of the desertions the army will recruit almost anybody. Before, they used to ask for five O-levels, including maths and English. The army was highly educated. Now there have been too many desertions and deaths from Aids, so you don’t need qualifications.’

One former corporal, in his late twenties, said that he deserted last year, fled to South Africa to find work and returned last month. ‘I was finished with the army when I took my child to hospital. He is a boy aged three. He was very sick from dirty water in the street. They told me they could not treat him unless I bought the medicines. I asked how much these medicines cost. If I worked all year I could not pay for them,’ he said.

‘They think we cannot see that those at the top are still getting rich, while our children get sicker. My son got very sick before my brother sent money to pay for the medicine. That’s when I realised I was better off there. Before we were soldiers; now we are beggars.’

A middle-aged NCO said that he remained in the army out of duty. ‘I am one of the last left in my unit. Most of the others went to South Africa or Botswana. The mechanics went first because they know how to fix cars and can work anywhere,’ he said. ‘I am a professional soldier. We had a good army, a professional army. One of the best in Africa. I did not just want to desert.

‘But now I think maybe I have been foolish. Maybe Mugabe is laughing at me. My family is hungry while I do my duty. I often ask myself if Mugabe is doing his duty.’

The captain said that last week’s violence in Harare was purely to do with wages. ‘There are civilians who believe the government is sending soldiers to create disorder, so it can declare a state of emergency. But the cause of that disturbance was a stupid one. The soldiers get paid at the barracks, but that day they only paid the officers. The soldiers were told to go to town and access their money at the bank. When they couldn’t get it there, they went to the Copacabana [a black market] and robbed them of their US dollars and local currency, and they smashed up the shops.

‘The soldiers are all disgruntled, very unhappy. They are suffering, their families are suffering. But I don’t think it will come to that point where they rebel. Soldiers who stay in the army are still worried about their careers.’

The Observer

Dr John Sentamu, writing in The Observer, said the world must recognise that the time for talks was over and Mugabe should be forced out. ‘The time has come for Robert Mugabe to answer for his crimes against humanity, against his countrymen and women and for justice to be done. The winds of change that once brought hope to Zimbabwe and its neighbours have become a hurricane of destruction, with the outbreak of cholera, destitution, starvation and systemic abuse of power by the state,’ he says.

‘As a country cries out for justice, we can no longer be inactive to their call. Robert Mugabe and his henchmen must now take their rightful place in The Hague and answer for their actions. The time to remove them from power has come.’

He said the power-sharing deal signed by Mugabe and the Zimbabwean opposition in September was ‘now dead’.

This time last year Sentamu, one of the Anglican church’s most senior clerics, ripped up his dog collar on television in protest at Mugabe’s regime and refused to wear one again until the tyrant had been toppled. He then asked Christmas shoppers to give £1 to Zimbabwe’s suffering people, but now he wants more far-reaching action.

The Archbishop’s attack came as Gordon Brown also stepped up the rhetoric yesterday, calling the Zimbabwean government a ‘blood-stained regime’ and urging the international community to tell Mugabe ‘enough is enough’. The Prime Minister said food shortages and the cholera epidemic had become an ‘international rather than a national emergency’ that demanded a co-ordinated response.

‘We must stand together to defend human rights and democracy, to say firmly to Mugabe that enough is enough,’ he said. ‘The whole world is angry because they see avoidable deaths – of children, mothers, and families affected by a disease that could have been avoided. This is a humanitarian catastrophe. This is a breakdown in civil society.’ Brown said he hoped the UN Security Council would meet ‘urgently’. But Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg went further, saying the UN should now declare the use of military force was justified: ‘The world has sat idly by while Mugabe has brutalised his own people for too long. Economic recession in the West has led the world to avert its gaze from the suffering in Zimbabwe. Further international inaction would be inexcusable.’

South African Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu said on Dutch TV that Mugabe must stand down or be removed ‘by force’. But while Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has said it was time for African governments to ‘take decisive action to push him out of power’, there has been little sign that Zimbabwe’s neighbours were prepared to move against him. The growing international fury came as cholera ravaged the people – 575 have died and 13,000 are infected – and the economy is worse than anything the world has seen.

The Zimbabwe central bank sacked executives at four banks accused of illegal foreign currency trading. The managers were sacked for diverting Zimbabwean dollars to the black market before the notes were introduced, central bank Governor Gideon Gono told the state-run Herald newspaper. Referring to reports that the central bank itself bought black market currency, Gono said: ‘We are sick and tired of being labelled crooks.’

Inflation is at 231,000,000 per cent and the Reserve Bank has been unable to print money fast enough to keep up with prices, which double every 24 hours.

The Observer