The Brussels-based International Crisis Group think tank has rejected allegations by a top official of Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party that a recent ICG report amounted to a call for a coup d'etat against the government of President Robert Mugabe.

Entitled "Zimbabwe's Continued Self-Destruction," the paper warned that Zimbabwe "faces the prospect of greater insecurity and violence" in the runup to the presidential election slated for 2008, and concluded that the divided opposition should resolve its differences to confront an "increasingly desperate and dangerous" government.

Spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, the country's ruling party, this week accused the International Crisis Group of encouraging the political opposition to stage a coup against President Mugabe. He said the ICG had "sponsored violence" in the Movement for Democratic Change.

Reporter Blessing Zulu of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe interviewed Shamuyarira.

From Washington, programming officer John Norris of the International Crisis Group Africa dismissed the allegations from Harare as "absolutely untrue," adding, "as bad as this current government is, we have never called for its violent overthrow."

More reports from VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe...