Zimbabwe’s neighbours have called an emergency meeting on the growing crisis over its disputed elections, as evidence emerged of a coordinated military campaign against the Opposition in the lead-up to a runoff vote.

Levy Mwanawasa, the Zambian President, announced yesterday that he was calling an urgent meeting on Saturday of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to formulate a regional approach to the worsening situation.

In recent days, Zimbabwe’s political limbo has moved beyond mere stalemate and into violence, as gangs of President Robert Mugabe’s loyalist thugs roam the country invading and destroying the few remaining commercial white-owned farms, while the military has been deployed to coordinate an intimidation campaign against opposition voters.

Twelve days on from election day, there is still no word on the outcome of the presidential election, which Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, claims to have won outright. Yesterday a High Court judge hearing an opposition petition to hear the results announced that a ruling would be announced on Monday.

The summit, which comes after Mr Tsvangirai toured his Southern African neighbours in an attempt to drum up outside support, is likely to step up pressure on the government-appointed election commission to release the results.

Mr Mwanawasa has been one of the few regional leaders to voice his concerns publicly about the situation in Zimbabwe, comparing the plight of the country’s economy to the sinking of the Titanic.

The former British colony, once considered the breadbasket of Africa, now bears an unofficial inflation rate of 250,000 per cent, with unemployment at more than 80 per cent.

The prospect of an SADC get-together was welcomed, however, by Mr Tsvangirai’s party, which has previously castigated the region for its “deafening silence”. “We hope the outcome of the meeting is going to be a strong message to Mugabe and also action that would help resolve the impasse in the country,” Nelson Chamisa, the MDC spokesman, said. Mr

Tsvangirai, who met Botswana’s leader yesterday, urged the whole region to intervene in their own interests.

Of the elections, he said: “We all of us know the result, we say we should wait for ZEC to announce it and so we are trying to emphasise that President Mugabe must do the honourable thing and accept defeat so we can really move forward.”

But violence against opposition supporters and white farmers continued across the country in what the MDC has called an orchestrated campaign of violence before a runoff election between Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai.

Despite the absence of official results, Mr Mugabe’s ruling Zanu (PF) party maintains that Mr Tsvangirai failed to win an absolute majority in the poll and must now face a second-round runoff.

Under the law, a runoff must be held within three weeks of the poll, but officials are yet to announce a date. Yesterday the Commercial Farmers Union, which has been monitoring the evictions of black and white farmers alike, released a leaked document purporting to be a military masterplan for the intimidation campaign.

The document names 200 senior military officers who have been charged with “campaigning” for Mr Mugabe across the country by commanding cells of war “veterans” to carry out acts of intimidation.

Reports have been flooding into Harare of soldiers visiting rural areas to identify opposition supporters, who have then been beaten up and had their homes torched. Mr Mugabe has sought to whip up racial tensions before the poll, urging people to reclaim white-owned land.

The Times visited a farm in the Chin-hoyi district west of Harare yesterday where a mob of young men, led by a well-known war veteran, had invaded and trashed a white-owned farmhouse, stealing or destroying all its contents.

Its owner, a white farmer who bought the farm 12 years ago with the consent of the Government, lost all his land in the original farm invasions of 2000 but had remained living in the house with his family. The mob had been assembled at the village hall before setting off for the farm, where they threatened the black foreman and labourers before ransacking the house.

“They said, you are Opposition,” the foreman said, “They were doing this to drive the white man off the farm.” Police refused to attend the scene until the next day, saying they were too afraid to be seen in the white farmer’s car.

“These are the kicks from an ailing horse,” a neighbouring farmer remarked.

“We don’t know if it’s dying yet. All these people, they are walking the gangplank, and they are going to do anything to avoid walking off the end. Bob’s probably ready to concede but it’s these people beneath him who will fight on.”

Diplomats said yesterday that they believed Mr Mugabe had been ready to leave the country late last week, under intense pressure from his family, but that senior military officers refused to let him and insisted that he fight on. “It’s a de facto coup,” one source said.

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