Zimbabwe opposition makes UN plea

Zimbabwe's opposition has called for help from the UN as the Security Council meets for its first discussion of the country's post-election crisis.

A senior opposition official said African diplomacy had failed.

In Zimbabwe, police freed more than 180 opposition activists without charge four days after their arrest.

The move came as a Zimbabwean human rights group accused the government of using violence in rural areas to rig a possible presidential run-off.

Allies of President Robert Mugabe say the violence is being exaggerated.

A BBC contributor in the southern town of Masvingo reports that the bodies of two opposition activists have been found after they were abducted.

Another BBC contributor, in the eastern town of Mutare, reports that opposition activists are starting to take revenge on ruling party militants.

He says they burnt down a militant base in Odzi, just north of Mutare on Monday, while the state-owned Herald newspaper says an army training camp was attacked.

In New York, the UN Security Council was briefed on the situation in Zimbabwe.

The UN's Under-Secretary for Political Affairs, Lynn Pascoe, told the council that Zimbabwe was in the midst of its worst humanitarian crisis since independence.

He expressed concern about a very high level of political intimidation and violence, and the "use of food as a political weapon". Tendai Biti, Secretary-General of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said he hoped the meeting would lead to a resolution of the country's crisis.

"We're also hoping that as soon as possible the Secretary General can dispatch an envoy to Zimbabwe," he told Reuters news agency.

He criticised South Africa for "defending the status quo" and Mr Mugabe's regime.

In other developments:

• Foreign ministers in the European Union, which has a ban on the sale of arms to Zimbabwe, have called on other countries to impose a similar policy.

• A teachers' union reports that teachers are fleeing rural areas after being accused of helping the opposition when they worked as election officials.

• US President George Bush has accused Mr Mugabe of "failing" and now "intimidating" the people of Zimbabwe.

• Earlier, Zimbabwe's ambassador to the UN told the BBC that whoever won the presidential race would have to form a government of national unity.

• The final five results from a partial parliamentary recount are expected.

• State radio reports that the verification of presidential votes will start on Thursday and could take several days to complete.

The MDC on Monday won a High Court order that its activists should be either released or charged on Monday.

"The police had no basis to hold them for this long. I am angry because they need not have been arrested at all," Alec Muchadehama told Reuters.

The police said the arrests at the MDC headquarters in Harare were in connection with political violence but the MDC said most of those detained were the victims of such violence, and had fled their homes in rural areas.

Masvingo police chief Mhekia Tanyanyiwa has confirmed the deaths of the two MDC supporters, our contributor says.

Police sources say Zvidzai Mapurisa was abducted from his home on Saturday and beaten, before his body was found floating in a dam.

Cathrine Mukwenje was attacked by suspected ruling party militants, who gouged out one of her eyes.

She later died from her injuries.

Kucaca Phulu, chairman of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (Zimrights), said such assaults were "a form of rigging".

He said hundreds of people had been forced from their homes. Meanwhile the MDC says this has often been in rural areas which Zanu-PF lost in the parliamentary elections.

"If there is a run-off, what is of grave concern to us is that all these displaced people will not be able to go back to their home areas to vote," Mr Phulu said, according to the AFP news agency.

But Zimbabwe's ambassador to the UN, Boniface Chidyausiku, dismissed as "totally false" the argument that the delay was to give Zanu-PF time to rig the outcome.

He pointed out that similar claims were made when the electoral commission said it was recounting 23 parliamentary results.

Eighteen of these results were announced at the weekend and were unchanged from those originally announced, meaning the opposition has a majority in parliament for the first time in Zimbabwe's history.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai says he also won the presidential race outright but independent monitors say he may have fallen short of the 50% needed to avoid a run-off.

Our Mutare contributor reports that rival political activists have been engaged in running battles in the poor Sakubva district, following reports that two houses have been burnt down.

- BBC