Robert Mugabe has issued a thinly-veiled threat to unleash war on his opponents to prevent them taking power in Zimbabwe's forthcoming election run-off.

The disputed president warned his country that veterans of the liberation war were preparing to take up arms should the opposition Movement for Democratic Change win the vote on June 27. Mr Mugabe’s Zanu PF already stands accused of waging a campaign of arrests and intimidation against opponents ahead of the poll, with MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai arrested four times in the last week and secretary-general Tendai Biti facing a treason charge.

The state-owned Herald newspaper quoted Mr Mugabe, a leader in the guerrilla war, as telling a rally that the veterans had asked him if they should be ready to fight.

“They came to my office after the (disputed March 29) elections and asked me: ’Can we take up arms?’,” Mr Mugabe said.

Times Archive, 1983: And now the real Mugabe stands up

His elegance of speech, and gentleness of manner, have deceived many in the West

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The Herald said Mr Mugabe told the veterans that he did not want the country to go back to war but insisted Zimbabwe would never be ruled by the MDC.

“It will never happen that this land which we fought for should be taken by the MDC so that they can give it back to our former oppressors, the whites,” the paper quoted him as saying.

Zanu-PF activists have been accused of murdering 66 MDC supporters in an attempt to steal the June vote, while human rights groups have been forced to close or leave the country. Earlier this week The Times reported that Mr Mugabe's militia had burned alive family members of MDC officials, including the six-year-old son of an elected councillor.

Earlier, the MDC said Zimbabwean police had impounded two campaign buses used by Mr Tsvangirai after detaining his entire convoy yesterday while he campaigned outside the capital.

Police claimed the vehicles were not properly registered but the MDC denied this, insisting the move was pure harassment.

Mr Tsvangirai would continue the campaign in an alternative vehicle, MDC spokesman George Sibotshiwe said.

Yesterday, Tendai Biti, the party's third most senior leader, was arrested at Harare airport as he flew in from South Africa. Police said he was to be charged with treason, for which he could face the death penalty.

Today, his lawyers said they had still not been given access to him. An urgent application asking the High Court to intervene had been made, lawyer Lewis Uriri said.

Meanwhile the South African Litigation Centre, a regional human rights group, said Zimbabwean police had ordered domestic non-governmental aid groups and other NGOs to cease operations.

The move followed a ban last week on international humanitarian groups working in Zimbabwe, which faces a chronic food and economic crisis with inflation spiralling and many citizens facing starvation.

US humanitarian affairs chief John Holmes said yesterday that the situation was deteriorating rapidly. He called it “very worrying and very serious ... with up to four million people in need of humanitarian assistance”.

Yesterday the United States called for urgent United Nations Security Council talks on Zimbabwe because it said Mr Mugabe, who has ruled the country since independence in 1980, had ignored international calls to end political violence.

But diplomats said South Africa, supported by China and Russia, opposed Security Council involvement.

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