"There is absolutely no truth in those allegations. They are pure and simple fabrication," Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) secretary general Welshman Ncube said.

The Zimbabwean army, accused of beating up opposition members, has denied brutalising people after last month's anti-government national strike, called by the opposition to protest at President Robert Mugabe's government.

The authorities instead suggested that military deserters were being enlisted by the MDC to beat up civilians.

On Monday, a group of 23 soldiers said to have deserted the army and allegedly responsible for beating civilians after the widely followed strike was paraded in front of reporters at a military jail in the capital.

The MDC has dissociated itself from the soldiers.

"The MDC unequivocally denies any links whatsoever with the young men who were paraded yesterday," Ncube said.

"We deny that we have at any time ever hired any youths or any member of the (army), deserters or otherwise, to cause violence anywhere in Zimbabwe," Ncube told a news conference.

Ncube alleged that the youths paraded on Monday were part of militia groups loyal to Mugabe's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF).

The MDC official said they had been paraded in a bid to blame the opposition for violent incidents ahead of a regional ministerial team's visit to Zimbabwe this week to probe allegations of state-sponsored rights abuses and violence.

Allegations that the MDC was enlisting army deserters to sow violence were meant to hoodwink foreign ministers from the 14-member Southern African Development Community (SADC), who last week decided to launch an investigation into alleged political violence in Zimbabwe, he said.

"This is a theatre that is being performed to divert the attention of the state-sanctioned human rights abuses ahead of the arrival of the SADC ministerial task force," said Ncube.

"It is self-evident that the attempt here is to divert attention from the demands that ZANU-PF should stop the systematic violence," he said.

Ncube added that the allegations would not deter the MDC from organising "peaceful, lawful and democratic protests in the form of mass action to ensure that we regain our freedom, our liberty."

Several MDC leaders have been arrested following the March 18-19 national strike.

Among them were MDC Vice President Gibson Sibanda and three opposition legislators.

The MDC said more than 600 of its supporters have been arrested, and scores beaten and tortured, with 250 hospitalised over the past two weeks.

SPACE.WIRE