Zimbabwe army supply weapons to militias
Militant followers of President Robert Mugabe who have attacked and tortured opposition supporters are being supplied with arms and equipment by Zimbabwe's military, a rights group said on Wednesday.
Human Rights Watch said the African Union and United Nations needed to take immediate action to prevent further violence in Zimbabwe after last month's disputed elections at a time when Mugabe supporters appeared to be tightening their hold on power.
"The army and its allies - war-veterans' and supporters of the ruling party Zanu-PF - are intensifying their brutal grip on wide swathes of rural Zimbabwe to ensure that a possible second round of presidential elections goes their way," Georgette Gagnon, HRW's Africa director, said in a statement.
"Military forces are providing arms and trucks to the so-called war veterans who have been implicated in numerous acts of torture and other violence against opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) members and supporters."
The organisation said serious abuses and a brutal campaign of torture were taking place a month after general elections on March 29, amid a mounting crisis over the failure to release presidential results.
Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party lost control of parliament for the first time since 1980 to the Movement for Democratic Change, whose leader Morgan Tsvangirai has also claimed victory in the presidential vote.
The MDC says 15 of its supporters have been killed in the aftermath of the polls in attacks carried out by Mugabe supporters, including veterans of the country's 1970s liberation war.
"The African Union and UN Security Council should take immediate steps to help prevent a further escalation in violence," said Gagnon.
The UN Security Council met on Tuesday to discuss the crisis in Zimbabwe but members failed to agree on a common response.