Angola's veteran leader has added his weight to appeals to Zimbabwe's government to end the political violence and intimidation that is threatening the legitimacy of its June 27 presidential run-off election. President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, an old ally of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, sent a message urging him to "embrace a spirit of tolerance", Angola's state-run ANGOP news agency said late on Friday.
But, despite signs of growing African discontent over bloodshed that has escalated since Zimbabwe's March 29 general election, Mugabe vowed never to hand over power to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change whose leader Morgan Tsvangirai is his rival in the run-off.
Branding the MDC a puppet of the West, the 84-year-old Mugabe said in Bulawayo on Friday: "The British and Americans want to play God. They have given themselves a role which is not their own, of installing and deposing governments. They want to do the same here but we say to them they are not God." The MDC says at least 70 of its members have been killed since that vote, and Tsvangirai is considering pulling out of the June 27 poll, a spokesman said. Some other African nations, the United States and former colonial power Britain have said they do not believe next week's run-off will be free and fair.