April 18 (Bloomberg) -- Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe deployed the army, police and intelligence officers to intimidate voters in rural areas to ensure he wins a presidential run-off vote, two top members of his party said.

The officials, who belong to the ruling Zanu-PF party's politburo, said the security forces are working with youth militia loyal to the party and groups who describe themselves as veterans of Zimbabwe's 1966-1979 liberation war against a minority white-led government.

Mugabe, 84, sought to extend his 28-year rule of Zimbabwe in the March 29 presidential election, which the opposition Movement for Democratic Change says it won. While the results are yet to be released, Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party officials have said none of the four contenders, including MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, attained the majority needed to avoid a second round. The MDC says it will only compete if international observers are allowed to monitor the election.

``The violence being perpetrated against rural Zimbabweans has reached epidemic proportions,'' George Sibotshiwe, a spokesman for Tsvangirai, said in an interview from Gaborone, Botswana, today. ``People are being beaten and even killed, women are being raped, children abused and houses burned to the ground.''

Zimbabwean police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said the MDC is responsible for violence in rural areas and has western backers.

At a rally in Harare today held to mark Zimbabwe's 28th anniversary of independence from Britain, Mugabe dismissed criticism of his human rights record, Agence France-Presse said.

Regional Allies

``Today we hear the British saying there's no democracy here, people are being oppressed, there's dictatorship, there's no observance of human rights, rule of law,'' Mugabe said, according to the news agency. ``We, not the British, established democracy based on one person, one vote, democracy which rejected racial or gender discrimination and observed human rights.''

Mugabe will also lobby regional allies such as Angola, Namibia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mozambique to forestall international pressure on the government, the politburo members said. He will also seek financial support from China, which backed Mugabe during the 1970s civil war, and Iran, they said.

The officials were among those who had urged a settlement with the opposition, including the departure of Mugabe, at politburo meetings held this month. They declined to be further identified.

Ebbing Support

Support for Mugabe has withered after a failed land redistribution program from white commercial farmers to black farmers, many of whom only grow food for themselves. The program spawned a decade of recession and the world's highest inflation rate, 164,900 percent.

Earlier this month supporters, some of them veterans of the liberation war, occupied white-owned farms. The invasions are similar to incidents that helped Mugabe prevail during an election campaign in 2000.

Land is a sensitive issue for rural Zimbabweans. Ninety years of white rule saw half the country's arable land transferred to British colonizers, with black Zimbabweans mostly confined to remote, crowded and unfertile areas. During the liberation war, Mugabe relied on the support of land-deprived rural black Zimbabweans. The campaign led to peace talks in 1979.

At least 157 people have been injured in organized violence since the poll, the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights, based in the capital, Harare, said on April 15.

South Africa

The South African government has meanwhile drawn criticism from opposition parties in the country, including the Democratic Alliance, after it said yesterday that it couldn't interfere with a shipment of arms destined for Zimbabwe that arrived in the port of Durban. The ship came from China and opposition parties want the shipment to be blocked.

South Africa's Transport and Allied Workers Union is refusing to have its members unload the ship or transport its contents to Zimbabwe by truck, said Randall Howard, the union's general secretary.

``We do not share the view that this must just be regarded as a matter of trade between China and Zimbabwe,'' he said in a telephone interview. ``There is a volatile situation that is beginning to play itself out in Zimbabwe. It's in that context we say that vessel with those arms must be returned to China and our members will refuse to handle this cargo.''

UN Court

It would be difficult for South Africa to stop weapons traversing its territory, government spokesman Themba Maseko told reporters yesterday in Pretoria.

Separately, the MDC today called on the United Nations to set up a special court to try Mugabe and his allies for human- rights abuses.

Yesterday, Tsvangirai said South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki should quit his role as mediator in Zimbabwe's political crisis and hand over to Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa because the crisis has gone on too long.

Mwanawasa rejected the call today on the grounds that Mbeki was mandated to mediate by the Southern African Development Community, and any decision to replace him had to be taken collectively by its 14 member countries, Zambian government spokesman Mike Mulongoti told reporter in Lusaka.

Mbeki met Mugabe in Harare on April 12 and said then there was no crisis in Zimbabwe. Mbeki said his comments were taken out of context.

The ruling Zanu-PF lost its parliamentary majority in last month's ballot for the first time since it came to power in 1980. The Electoral Commission says it hasn't announced the outcome of the presidential vote because of logistical problems.

Recount Demanded

The ruling party has called for a recount of ballots from 23 parliamentary constituencies -- a move the opposition said is an attempt to overturn the poll outcome. Zimbabwe's High Court today rejected a lawsuit filed by the opposition that sought to halt the recount, which is due to begin tomorrow, AFP said.

Meanwhile the London-based Times newspaper reported that Jonathan Clayton, its Africa correspondent, yesterday returned to Johannesburg from Zimbabwe, where he was imprisoned, interrogated and beaten by security officials. Clayton, 54, who was arrested April 8, was convicted of making false declarations to immigration officials and fined the equivalent of about 200 pounds ($399) the newspaper said on its Web site.

To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Latham via Johannesburg at asguazzin@bloomberg.netAntony Sguazzin in Johannesburg at asguazzin@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 18, 2008 12:20 EDT