Defiant Mugabe presses on with vote.

6/24/2008 11:38:09 PM

Robert Mugabe has defied international criticism and vowed to press on with Zimbabwe's presidential run-off election as his opponent urged world leaders to back their tough talk with "military force".

The Zimbabwean president on Tuesday dismissed a call by the UN Security Council to postpone Friday's run-off.

State media quoted Mugabe as saying that he was open to negotiations with Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, but only after the elections.

"We are open, open to discussion, but we have our own principles," the government-owned Herald newspaper quoted him as saying at rallies on Tuesday.

"If they [the opposition] have problems they can always bring them forward."

Tsvangirai still hiding

But Mugabe also called Tsvangirai a coward.

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader is still in hiding at the Dutch embassy in Harare where he sought refuge earlier this week following a police raid on his party headquarters, saying he feared for his life.

The MDC, which officially withdrew from the presidential race on Tuesday, says at least 80 of its supporters have been killed by Zanu-PF loyalists with another 200,000 displaced in what it calls Mugabe's "campaign of intimidation" to deter people from voting.

Mugabe supporters have denied the allegations and the president taunted his opponent on Tuesday, asking: "Why seek refuge? What for? Why are you afraid of the vote now?"

'People's verdict'

Mugabe also said Zimbabwe would resist outside interference in its affairs.

"The verdict is ours as the people of Zimbabwe," The Herald newspaper quoted him as saying.

"They can shout as loud as they want from Washington and London but our people will deliver the final verdict."

Mugabe also chided some African neighbours for not standing up for Zimbabwe.

"Not a single country has been bold enough to say that the illegal sanctions by the West should be lifted or tell them not to interfere in our internal affairs," he said.

Al Jazeera's Haru Mutasa, reporting from Banket, said most Zimbabweans had accepted the fact that Friday's elections would go ahead, but some opposition supporters were concerned about being forced to vote for Mugabe.

Military force urged

On Monday the UN Security Council unanimously condemned the "campaign of violence" in Zimbabwe saying it had made a free and fair run-off election "impossible".

The non-binding statement said "the results of the 29 March 2008 elections must be respected".

Tsvangirai had won that election but did not secure enough votes to prevent a second round of voting.

But Tsvangirai wrote in The Guardian newspaper on Wednesday that the United Nations had to go further than verbal condemnation and move on to "active isolation" which required "a force to protect the people".

"We do not want armed conflict, but the people of Zimbabwe need the words of indignation from global leaders to be backed by the moral rectitude of military force," he wrote.

"Such a force would ... separate the people from their oppressors and cast the protective shield around the democratic process for which Zimbabwe yearns."

A "new election, devoid of violence and intimidation, is the only way to put Zimbabwe right", he said.

Speaking in New York, Boniface Chidyauskiu, Zimbabwe's ambassador to the UN, insisted that Tsvangirai was in no danger and that news of threats to his life were propaganda.

"Nothing has happened to him and he has been campaigning," the ambassador told AP Television, accusing the MDC of using violence and intimidation to slander the government.

"Any movement is taken out of context and is blown out of proportion. The truth of the matter is the police did not raid MDC headquarters," he said.

Chidyauskiu accused Zimbabwe's main opposition party of trying to win power "by hook or crook".

"And they are playing to the international media to say, you know, 'come and install us', you know, 'we are being persecuted'," he added.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, has said tainted results from Friday's vote would "deepen the divisions" within Zimbabwe, which he described as "the single greatest challenge to regional stability in southern Africa today".

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Publication:	Aljazeera.net
Date:	Jun 25, 2008
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