By MacDonald Dzirutwe
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe saidon Friday liberation war veterans would take up arms if heloses a June 27 presidential run-off vote.
Mugabe told youth members of his ruling ZANU-PF party inHarare that the veterans had told him they would launch a newbush war if the election was won by opposition leader MorganTsvangirai, whom he accuses of being a puppet of the West.
"They said if this country goes back into white hands justbecause we have used a pen (to vote), 'we will return to thebush to fight,'" Mugabe said, ratcheting up the pressure toextend his 28-year-presidency.
Tsvangirai, rights groups and Western powers accuse Mugabeof unleashing a brutal campaign, including using police toharass opponents, to win the run-off. Mugabe and the ZANU-PFlost presidential and parliamentary elections on March 29.
A second ballot, however, is required because Tsvangirai,the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change leader, fellshort of the majority needed to win the presidency outright. Hesays 66 of his followers have been killed since the March poll.
Zimbabwe's High Court on Friday ordered police to bring MDCSecretary General Tendai Biti to court on Saturday and justifywhy he had been arrested at Harare's airport on Thursday. Bitifaces a treason charge that could carry a death sentence.
"The order we got is for him to be brought to court and forthe police to show cause why they are holding him," defenceattorney Lewis Uriri said. He said Biti was expected to appearin court at 9 a.m. British time on Saturday.
Former guerrilla commander Mugabe, president sinceindependence from Britain in 1980, blames the MDC for theviolence that has caused widespread international concern.
"We cannot allow the British to dominate us here againthrough their puppets. You saw what they were saying (after theMarch elections), celebrating an MDC victory," the 84-year-oldruler said. "These were the whites we took farms from."
MUGABE OPPONENTS
The war veterans, usually acting alongside the ZANU-PFyouth militia, have regularly been used to intimidate Mugabe'sopponents and were involved in implementing the government'sseizure of thousands of white-owned farms beginning in 2000.
Some of the seized land was given to the veterans.
Earlier, the MDC said Zimbabwean police impounded twocampaign buses used by Tsvangirai, who has been detained fourtimes in the past week and had his own vehicle confiscated. MDCspokesman George Sibotshiwe said the campaign would continue.
The Southern African Development Community, a grouping of14 nations including Zimbabwe, has sent a team of electionmonitors to Harare. Observers from Western nations critical ofMugabe's government are not being allowed into the country.
Zimbabwe's agricultural sector, once one of the mostprosperous in Africa, has collapsed, and shortages of bread,milk and meat are common. Inflation is running at 165,000percent and unemployment is 80 percent.
U.N. humanitarian affairs chief John Holmes said thesituation was deteriorating rapidly. He called it "veryworrying and very serious ... with up to four million people inneed of humanitarian assistance".
Mugabe's government last week banned foreign aid groups,and a regional rights group said on Friday domesticnon-governmental organisations had also been ordered to stopworking.
"This government will do anything that it feels isnecessary, including the harassment and maybe even the harm todiplomats, to ensure that they stay in power," James McGee,U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe, told reporters in a conferencecall.
(Additional reporting by Cris Chinaka; Writing by MariusBosch and Paul Simao; Editing by Charles Dick)
