Zimbabwe's Opposition warns of bloodshed

Zimbabwe's Opposition yesterday accused President Robert Mugabe of unleashing a campaign of violence since elections and called on African states to intervene to prevent widespread bloodshed.

The Movement for Democratic Change said Mr Mugabe was trying to provoke a backlash as a pretext for declaring a state of emergency that could help him prolong his 28 years in power.

"I say to my brothers and sisters across the continent - don't wait for dead bodies in the streets of Harare. There is a constitutional and legal crisis in Zimbabwe," Movement for Democratic Change Secretary-General Tendai Biti told a news conference.

He said the ruling Zanu-PF had launched a violent campaign against opposition supporters following a stalemate over March 29 elections and was trying to rig the results so Mr Mugabe could contest a runoff against MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Mr Tsvangirai says he won the presidential vote and should be declared President immediately to end the rule of Mr Mugabe, 84, whose critics accuse him of reducing a once prosperous nation to misery.

Zimbabwe has inflation of more than 100,000 per cent - the highest in the world - an unemployment rate above 80 per cent and chronic shortages of food and fuel. Millions have fled abroad, most of them to South Africa.

Zanu-PF is pressing for a delay in issuing the presidential results pending a recount and is also alleging abuses by electoral officials in an attempt to overturn its first defeat in a parliamentary poll."Militias are being rearmed, Zanu-PF supporters are being rearmed... The long and short of it is that there has been a complete militarization of Zimbabwean society since the 29th of March 2008," he added.

Earlier, a farmers' union said independence war veterans, used as political shock troops by Mr Mugabe, had evicted more than 60 mostly white farmers from their land since the weekend.

"The situation is very severe. The evictions are continuing right round the country. We have over 60 farmers evicted as of this morning. Every couple of minutes my phone is ringing with another case of eviction," said Commercial Farmers' Union President Trevor Gifford.

The veterans had forced the farmers to leave their homes with only the clothes they were wearing. Those evicted included at least one black farmer, Mr Gifford said.

Police said they were not aware of the farm invasions.

The veterans have already spearheaded the eviction of most white farmers under President Mugabe's land reforms.

The opposition says Mr Mugabe is delaying the presidential election result to give him more time to prepare for a runoff against Mr Tsvangirai, and has asked the High Court to force release of the outcome.

"Zanu-PF is trying to cook the election result in order to engineer and achieve a run-off," Mr Biti said.

The High Court ruled yesterday it would treat the opposition's application as urgent and began hearing arguments in the case.

Legal proceedings are already in their fourth day and could drag further, delaying the end of the stalemate.