President Mugabe threatened to expel the US Ambassador yesterday after accusing him of interfering in domestic politics and promised to give land to Zimbabweans fleeing xenophobic violence in South Africa.

“I am just waiting to see if he makes one more step wrong. He will get out,” Mr Mugabe told a rally as he stepped up campaigning for a second-round run-off in presidential elections. “As tall as he is, if he continues to do that I will kick him out of the country.”

Mr Mugabe accused James McGee of meddling after the US Ambassador publicly called on Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, to return home to contest the run-off on June 27.

The President also made the offer of land to thousands of Zimbabweans fleeing violence in South African townships that has killed 50 foreign nationals and displaced tens of thousands more. “We have land for our people in South Africa who may want to return home,” he said.

Mr Mugabe's comments followed the return of Mr Tsvangirai after a six-week absence abroad. His first stop after arriving at Harare airport - unhindered by authorities - was at a hospital to visit victims of savage assaults on supporters of his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) that began soon after the first round of elections on March 29.

“I have seen people in hospital with scars and wounds and they say to me, Mr President, now we will finish him [Mr Mugabe] off,” he said. “If Mugabe thinks he has beaten people into submission, he will have a rude shock on June 27. They [the Government] have beaten themselves into serious rejection by the people of Zimbabwe.”

The MDC inflicted the first election defeat since independence in 1980 on Mr Mugabe and his Zanu (PF) party.

While abroad Mr Tsvangirai lobbied widely to bring international pressure on Mr Mugabe's regime to stop the violence and allow independent international observers and peacekeepers, including the United Nations, into the country well before the elections.

He said that southern African leaders were appalled at what was happening in Zimbabwe, particularly the violence. Churches, human rights organisations and diplomats have evidence that at least 26 people have been murdered - the MDC puts the number at 43 - and about 2,000 have been treated in hospital for assault; thousands more have fled their homes. They confirm that all but a handful are victims of Mr Mugabe's party and militias.

In the past week the Government has mounted a publicity drive to portray Mr Mugabe as striving for a non-violent campaign. “Such violence is needless and must stop forthwith,” he says in a full page advertisement in local newspapers. “It's nonsense,” a Western diplomat said. “Mugabe can switch it on and off at will.” Last week he was quoted telling his party's politburo to form “warlike structures” to fight the run-off, saying that the party faced “a situation like all-out war” to survive the vote.

The past fortnight also has seen the emergence of death squads that seek out key MDC activists. Last Monday the body of Tonderai Ndira, a senior MDC youth official, was dumped in a Harare government hospital a week after he had been snatched from his home here by eight men armed with pistols. His body was so mangled that his father, Raphael, was able to identify him only by a scar on his elbow, a bracelet and his shorts, which were tied around his head.

Also last week police discovered the bodies, abandoned in the bush near Harare, of three other activists, all of whom had been abducted a week earlier. At the burial on Wednesday of two of the victims, people fled as 100 Zanu (PF) youth invaded Harare's Warren Hills cemetery and attacked the mourning party. “What has happened to people in our country?” asked an elderly woman. “Respect for the dead is the most profound part of our culture.”

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