HARARE, April 8: 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 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.

“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 militarisation 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.—Reuters