HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP):

Zimbabwean opposition leader and presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai returned quietly to his homeland yesterday, stopping first to visit hospitalised supporters targeted in an onslaught of state-sponsored violence, then calling on increasingly autocratic President Robert Mugabe to "set his people free."

Tsvangirai left six weeks ago to warn the world about impending violence. He first tried to return a week ago, but called that off after his party said he was the target of a military assassination plot. The former union leader has survived at least three assassination attempts.

Last week, a party meeting in central Harare and a rally had been planned for his return. In the end, he came back in typically low-key style.

little fanfare

He arrived at the capital's main airport with little fanfare and then sped off in a three-car convoy to a Harare hospital were victims of political violence were being treated.

"I return home to Zimbabwe with a sad heart," he told reporters after the hospital visit. "I have met and listened to the stories of the innocent people targeted by a regime seemingly desperate to cling to power."

June 27 runnoff

Tsvangirai faces a presidential runoff against Mugabe on June 27. Independent human-rights groups say opposition supporters have been beaten and killed by government and ruling party thugs to ensure the 84-year-old Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, wins the second round. He trailed Tsvangirai in the first round on March 29.

"Mugabe once led our people to freedom," Tsvangirai told reporters in Harare. "He can even now set his people free from poverty, hunger and fear" by stepping down.

The violence poses serious questions about whether the runoff can be free and fair. But Tsvangirai said he did not expect it to keep his supporters from the polls.

"If Mugabe thinks he has beaten people into submission, he will have a rude shock on the 27th," he said.

Tsvangirai told The Associated Press on the way to the airport in Johannesburg, South Africa, that he felt safe returning.

He had said farewell to his family with a quick "OK. Cheers," on the front porch of his northern Johannesburg home. One of his twin daughters took pictures with her cellphone. Tsvangirai said it was not clear when his wife and six children would join him in Zimbabwe.

plight of dissenters

Among the assassination attempts Tsvangirai, 56, has survived was one in 1997 by unidentified assailants who tried to throw him from a 10th-floor window. Last year, he was hospitalised after a brutal assault by police at a prayer rally, and images seen around the world of his bruised and swollen face have come to symbolise the plight of dissenters in Zimbabwe.