HARARE—African states must intervene in Zimbabwe to prevent widespread bloodshed, the opposition said on Tuesday, accusing President Robert Mugabe of trying to provoke violence as a pretext for a state of emergency.
"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.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai says he won the presidential vote and should be declared president immediately, ending the 28-year rule of Robert Mugabe, whose critics accuse him of reducing a once prosperous nation to misery.
Zimbabwe has inflation of more than 100,000 percent—the highest in the world—an unemployment rate above 80 percent 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.
"There's been massive violence inside our country since the 29th of March 2008 ... MDC people are being beaten up ... farms with remaining pockets of white people are being invaded. Farms with known MDC supporters are being invaded," Biti said.
"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 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.
Farm Evictions
The veterans had forced them to leave their homes with only the clothes they were wearing. Those evicted included at least one black farmer, Gifford told Reuters.
Police said they were not aware of the farm invasions.
The veterans have already spearheaded the eviction of most white farmers under Mugabe's land reforms.
The MDC says Mugabe is delaying the presidential election result to give him more time to prepare for a runoff against Tsvangirai, and has asked the High Court to force release of the outcome.
The court ruled on Tuesday 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 a 10-day stalemate that has dashed hopes of a quick answer to the crisis.
Biti told reporters: "We are saying to our fellow Africans, in the African Union and in SADC (Southern African Development Community) ... don't wait for dead bodies ... intervene now."
Traders in neighbouring South Africa said the impasse was likely to weigh on the rand currency, briefly boosted last week when there was speculation Mugabe would stand down after his ruling ZANU-PF party lost the parliamentary poll.
"Counting against the rand is the way in which the Zimbabwe elections are rapidly deteriorating into a farce," said market analysts ETM in a trading note.
Tsvangirai met South African ruling party leader Jacob Zuma on Monday after appealing for help from outside powers to end Mugabe's uninterrupted rule since independence.
Tsvangirai wrote in a newspaper article that Zimbabwe was on a "razor's edge" because of the 84-year-old Mugabe's efforts to cling to power.
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